:her 



(;^f S'f, till. 



PD'/SDV D'UvN m 



W5 'mm 




Roderick 
Campbell 

» F. R. Ci. 5. • 




Book ^iai._ 




K()1)I:rICK CAMI'llELL, F.R.G.S. 



THE 

FATHER OF ST. KILDA 



Twenty Years in Isolation 

IN the Sub-Arctic Territory of the 

Hudson's Bay Company. 



BY 



RODERICK CAMPBELL, F.R.G.S. 



WITH PORTRAIT. 



LONDON: 

W. R. RUSSELL & CO., LTD. 

PATERNOSTER ROW. 

igoi. 






BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS, 
LONDON AND TONBRIDGE. 



f 









c\ 



•v 



K 



BY SPECIAL PERMISSION 

TO THE 

RIGHT HON. LORD STRATHCONA 
AND MOUNT ROYAL, 

HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR CANADA IN LONDON. 



PREFACE 



It was said long ago, that *' of the making 
of books there is no end." I, too, wisely or 
unwisely, have made a book. In the fag-end 
of a weary century we have attained to the 
prosaic faculty of being able to measure 
sunshine, weigh winds, and analyse stars, yet 
the primitive instincts of humanity are still 
unconquered, still unconquerable. A sun- 
worshipper by nature and early training, I 
have loved dearly a life in the open air. Is 
it then folly, ignorance, or presumption that 
tempts me to become an author? My audacity 
stares me in the face. Yet '' one must 
accomplish something," says Goethe, **nay, 
fail in something, to learn to know one's own 
capacities and those of others." We discover 
an unsuspected vein in us, only in beginning 
to work it. And so work grows out of faith, 
and it takes both to make a man. It is by 
toil alone that we arrive at our true selves. 
Only by polishing do we reach the peculium of 
a diamond — its light-giving faculty ; and only by 
the same process do we discover the hidden 
powers of a man, his peculiar office and 
function in the world, which none other can 
exactly fill. 

The following pages contain a personal 
narrative — the history of my early years and 



vi PREFACE 

of my travels and adventures, strange and 
thrilling enough, in the territories around 
Hudson Bay. I have dealt little in geography 
and ethnology. Recent works on these matters 
have added greatly to the knowledge we 
possessed when I made my youthful journey 
from Stornoway to Hudson Bay and the Red 
River of the North. In the account of that 
and subsequent journeys I am able to give the 
first complete picture of these scarce-known 
regions and their primitive inhabitants as they 
were when first the white trader ventured 
among them. I have made it my care to tell 
my story with absolute truthfulness, and have 
yielded to no temptation to embellish it. If I 
can induce some youth, conscious of energy, 
ability and force of will, to ponder over and profit 
by the lessons of a unique career, I shall be 
happy ; for, according to an ancient saying, to 
receive is only a single pleasure, but to give is 
a threefold one. Let me only say, further, 
that, in the words of Burns, ** I am determined 
to make these lines my confidant. I will sketch 
every character that in any way strikes me to 
the best of my observation, with unshrinking 
justice." Thus he whom these pages do not 
interest will have only himself to blame should 
he read further, and if he weary himself over 
them I can only desire him to recollect that 
for him they were not written. ^ p 

BusHEY Heath, 
April, 190 1. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



The desire to see foreign countries was 
awakened in me at a very early age. How 
strong was this trait of the combined Celtic 
and Norse blood which ran in my veins my 
history is witness. As a boy I was brave, 
ready to hold my own against all comers, 
light-hearted, but always full of confidence. 
Whether at angling, rock-fishing, or any game, 
no boy in the place could beat me. Steadiness 
of aim and purpose, frankness of speech, and 
truthfulness at any price were my ideal virtues. 
As I grew older I cared less for the society 
of my playmates, and preferred the conversa- 
tion of the elder folks. Thus I acquired a 
sagacity beyond my years, and an inborn 
foresight and regard for the consequences of 
my actions. I was habitually quick and sound 
in perception, and tacitly circumspect in all 
my doings. These qualities often stood me in 
good stead, and enabled me to get off scot-free 
when my comrades were caught and punished 



viii INTRODUCTORY. 

for one or other of those pranks in which I was 
generally the instigator and leader. I was quick, 
too, at reading character by physiognomy, a 
gift I have since found invaluable in my singular 
and varied career. Beyond this I was endowed 
with an extraordinarily tenacious memory. 
These qualities being given, how much there 
is to be found by one who diligently seeks ! 
Yet, strange to say, the possession of these 
qualities only served to render my boyhood 
extremely unhappy, because, I presume, of the 
surroundings in which I was born, or perhaps 
because of the star under which that insignifi- 
cant event took place. True, I could never 
angle for favour or popularity. These I looked 
upon as ephemeral, and despised ; for even in 
my boyhood I had a strong craving for what 
was true and lasting. 

I was born in the Lewis, in the remotest 
parish of that Ultima Thule, and nursed among 
seas and crags, amid surroundings stern and 
simple such as discipline the spirit for a life ol 
toil. I opened my eyes upon a world of winds 
and storms, and the instinct of stress and of 
endeavour thus implanted has never left me, 
and never will. 

There is no finer picture in all the wild and 
remote Hebrides than the Butt of Lewis, 



INTRODUCTORY. ix 

looming out of the dark blue waters of the 
North Atlantic like a grim sentinel, guarding 
*' in filial strain Britannia's barren coast." 
Its steep tower-crowned heights, its rugged 
rampart of cliffs, have faced for ages the rude 
winter gales of the broad Atlantic. The coast 
line is tortured continuously by the ocean waves, 
which have fretted the reefs into cruel fangs, 
lurking wolf-like and ravenous round every 
point and inlet. Among the tumbled pre- 
cipitous masses, and the rocky ledges of the 
granite cliffs, the high tremendous seas fling 
their girdle of snow-white foam, with laughter 
of tossing surge. At the tide-swept promontory 
of the Butt's Eye, where one looks east and 
west over an endless stretch of luminous dark 
blue water, a rainbow gleams unceasingly on 
the shimmering veil of flying spray. 

Yet notwithstanding the stern majesty of 
the coast, the island's inner aspect has a 
charm pecuHarly its own. It has a milder 
climate and softer air than many other parts 
of the British Isles, and would be a pleasant 
place to live in all the year round if it were not 
lashed by so many storms of wind and rain 
bred in the broad, restless Atlantic, which 
beats upon its shores. Yet these ocean-born 
storms lend an invigorating quality to the air, and 



X INTRODUCTORY. 

keep the hills and valleys of an emerald green 
unrivalled among these northern islands. The 
temperate influence of the Gulf Stream softens 
for it the harsher asperities of winter, and frost 
and snow do not often come to stay very long. 
When the sun shines and the skies are clear 
blue and the sea rolls in, white-crested, to the 
yellow strand, the dark mist-cloud and sweeping 
** rack " are easily forgotten. 

The island, too, has its share of historical 
and antiquarian interest, in its varied associa- 
tions with remote ages and the scanty but 
venerable ruins that yet remain. The treasures 
of romance, the tales of daring and of suffering 
that cling about these antique buildings, ought 
surely to quicken the imagination of writers 
and make the task of invention light, for where 
there is a ruin there is a story. It cannot be 
doubted that the Roman general Agricola 
landed at Ness when circumnavigating the 
British Isles in 82 — 83 a.d. Three miles west 
of Port Ness, near the spot where I first saw 
the light, there is an inlet, a very beautiful 
spot, called after Agricola's son-in-law, the 
Stoic philosopher aud moralist, Seneca. Thus 
with a record dating back to the beginning of the 
Christian era, the Lewis can even claim a patron 
saint of its own, who lived there for many 



INTRODUCTORY. xi 

years labouring to lighten the darkness of the 
rude West. He was of the clan MacGhillie 
Mhoire, and was known as St. Oran the Good 
and the father of St. Kilda.* His descendants 
held the position of Breithcamh of the Lewis 
till a comparatively late date. He built the 
old St. Peter's Church in Swanbost Valley at 
Ness, and also St. Thomas' Temple at Europie, 
the latter probably in memory of a visit of St. 
Columba to the island. The literature of the 
island might have been considerable, but it is 
becoming increasingly difficult to collect the 
facts and traditions. Clearly, the island was 
first peopled from two points — Loch Inchard 
by the Norsemen, and the Sound of Harris by 
the Celts. Later, a third colony, of Picts, 
crossed the Minch from Point of Stoir, and 
settled on the peninsula of Long Point on 
Broad Bay, where they built a church, finally 
extending their conquering rights to Bay-head, 
now Stearn-a-bhaigh (Stornoway). 

This and a great deal more I learned as a 

* Physically, too, the Lewis is also the father of St. Kilda. 
The legend recorded by Martin, of the warrior queen who 
hunted deer on the land between St. Kilda and Harris, points 
to the possibility of men having found their way there at a 
time when St. Kilda still formed part of the Lewis. This story 
was also frequently told me by Angus Gunn, as a truism, for 
he gave utterance to a conscious truth — oral truth — from one 
generation to another. 



xii INTRODUCTORY. 

boy from old Angus Gunn, the Herodotus of 
the island, who told his tales of old with much 
emotion, tears glittering on his long white eye- 
lashes, and running down his aged cheeks. 
To question his veracity would be an unpardon- 
able insult. He had a rare, a marvellous and 
uncontaminated memory ; and truth telling, 
literal, strict and absolute, was the first article 
of his faith. And undoubtedly the accuracy of 
many of his stories is attested by historical 
facts. The original people of the island 
(Celtic) now inhabit the whole western side, 
having fled before the Pictish intruders to the 
verge of the Atlantic. These form the popu- 
lation of many hamlets from Callanish — the 
famous Druidical stone hamlet — in the west, 
to Borve in the east, and are noticeably dis- 
tinguished by their dark complexion and 
diminutive stature. Near all these hamlets 
may be found visible traces of defensive forti- 
fications in loch or on reef, thrown up when 
the ocean forbade further retreat. There is 
no doubt as to the predatory habits of the 
interlopers. The traditions of their cattle- 
lifting forays are second only in vivid interest 
to the thrilling records of the Border raids. 
Many bloody battles were fought between my 
ancestors, the burly Morrisons of Ness, and 



INTRODUCTORY. xiii 

the fierce Macaulays of Uig, that would not 
have been unworthy the daring audacity of 
Rob Roy himself. Would that the author of 
** Waverley " had visited these scenes ! With- 
out him, or another such as he, the tales and 
traditions of the Long Island must perish 
unknown to the world. 

The island had many successive proprietors, 
but records only survive of three. The big 
burly McLeods held sway for a long time, the 
McKenzies of Seaforth for a shorter period, 
though their rule will be favourably remembered 
for its kind and humane dealing with the poor 
crofters. In 1844 Mr. (afterwards Sir James) 
Matheson bought the place from the Seaforth 
trustees for ;^igo,ooo. The previous year he 
had married a Canadian lady, a Miss Mary 
Jane Perceval, of Spencer Wood, near Quebec. 
With the advent of the new proprietor came 
in an evil hour the potato disease. In these 
trying times he showed himself a generous 
landlord, considerate and humane towards the 
crofters. As feudal superior he recognised his 
responsibilities, and did much to improve the 
condition of the people, of whose nature and 
requirements he had a true understanding. 
He established a system of popular education 
by means of primary schools, and in this good 



xiv INTRODUCTORY. 

work Lady Matheson heartily seconded him 
by building a seminary for the higher educa- 
tion of young ladies. Alas, that the time was 
gone when I might have shared in these 
advantages ! He assisted many poor people, 
utterly unable to help themselves, to emigrate 
to Canada. Many of these it has been my 
privilege to visit after many years in their new 
homes amid vastly improved circumstances. 
This considerate kindness and mild and bene- 
ficent habit of deahng secured the cordial and 
happy relationship between landlord and people 
with which his name shall always be proudly 
associated. 

But this is not a biography of the first 
baronet of Achany. Neither is it a history 
of the Lewis. Should no such history exist, 
however, this outline will perhaps serve to 
revive the memory of the old and stimulate 
the imagination of the young. I have attacked 
the theme with what Dr. Johnson called ** the 
intrepidity of ignorance." It is submitted as 
an endeavour, and if the necessity is the justi- 
fication of an endeavour, the charity that is 
greater than knowledge will surely temper 
judgment. Style, subtlety, and literary refine- 
ment I have not to give, and, indeed, these do 
not always attract, sometimes rather repel, the 



INTRODUCTORY. xv 

common-sense reader. I have no qualification, 
in the literary sense, for the task of writing a 
book. I have not at command the phrase 
which condenses the essence of a paragraph 
or a page. But if the portraits which I here 
present are painted with neither subtlety nor 
vigour, I have at least laid my prejudices to 
sleep, and have, I trust, spoken with candour 
and charity even of people to whom I am not 
and cannot be attracted. Indeed, the greatest 
care has been exercised that no undue personal 
reference should prejudice judgment. 

Yet another word. We hear sometimes of 
the privilege of birth. For my own part I 
know of no birth so privileged as that which 
places a man face to face with the facts of 
life, untrammelled by tradition and conven- 
tion. Thus, free from the first in my outlook 
upon life, my themes ought to appeal to every 
youth. I hope not a few will find in them 
matter for thought and consideration. The 
reader will discover, as he proceeds, how 
picturesque a career has been developed out 
of an origin, temperament and circumstances 
strangely diverse and striking. 



THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 



CHAPTER I. 

BIRTH — CHURCH SCHISM — GENERAL REMARKS. 

Unquestionably my birth was unpropitious. 
I came into the world just when Dr. Chalmers 
and his contemporaries were in the heat ot 
theological contention, when the disruption 
of the Church of Scotland closed our parish 
school, and the potato blight darkened the 
fortunes of the island. With the exception 
of about ten per cent, in the town of Stor- 
noway, the whole population of the Lewis 
went over en masse to the new party, and in 
heroic mood, strong though delusive, nailed 
their colours to the new mast. One feels 
sometimes inclined to ask what became of 
religious faith amid all this bickering. While 
the shepherds belaboured each other with 
their crooks the wolves carried off the sheep 
from both sides. Perhaps this was not to be 
regretted. The spectacle of this theological 
party strife sets the thoughtful mind to work 
to find out what lies behind, and so not 
uncommonly liberty of conscience, tolerance, 

S.K. B 



2 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

justice, and humanity are found. In the outer 
developments pure reason has only a minor 
part to play. For Fraser of Brae, Campbell 
of Row, Erskine of Linlathen, and Morrison 
of Bathgate were deposed for preaching a large 
and generous gospel, in advance of the stricter 
Calvinism, and thus secessions had begun as 
early as 1733. The blissful inertia of the 
** Auld Kirk," however, and the unsatisfactory 
operation of the laws of patronage provided 
a more rational basis of complaint. And both 
abuses were more than made up for by the 
invention by the immortal man of Anstruther 
of the famous Sustentation Fund. 

It is surely not impious to say that Chris- 
tianity was one thing to Paul, another to John, 
and yet another to James. For their con- 
ceptions of it introduce us to three separate 
thought-worlds. And so through the ages. 
There are Calvin and Rabelais, contemporary 
ecclesiastics, fellow-countrymen, each furnished 
with all the learning of the day, each with the 
same religious facts within his view, yet one 
offers us the '' Institutes," and the other 
*' Pantagruel." The African Augustine and 
the Alexandrian Origen had the same records 
and traditions to go upon ; but how different 
an affair each made of it ! The brothers 
Newman, again, men so closely related, so 



EARLY YEARS. 3 

pure, and so high-minded — is not their absolute 
oneness on mathematical questions in itself 
a proof that some other element than pure 
reason had come into play to produce their 
religious differences ? And so the minds 
mystic and the minds rationalistic, the minds 
inductive and the minds deductive, tunnel 
continually through the sam.e mountain all 
to emerge at last into the same hght. 

The true vsecret of our theologies lies deep 
down in that ''philosophy of the unconscious" 
which waits yet to be explored. It is the 
secret of temperament which creates for each 
of us a separate universe, a separate creed. 
What a man sees depends as much on the 
inner instrument as on the outer object, and 
a Swedenborg could never see as a Voltaire. 
The truth lies in the Aristotelian principle 
'* that our nature is not simple, and there is 
in us an element of corruption which makes 
us prone to change. We are all material as 
well as spiritual, sensual as well as intellectual, 
composite organisms." 

But to return to the disruption in the Lewis. 
There was no compromise possible. A Scotch- 
man spends no small part of his life in splitting 
theological hairs, while his neighbour uses the 
hairs to stuff a social mattress on which he 
may comfortably repose. Feeling ran high, 
and angry words were spoken. There was no 

B 2 



4 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

lack of faith and zeal, though a good deal of 
mere complaisance and unreasoned emotion, 
among the people. Ignorance and fear led 
many of them, and they followed like sheep 
with docility and such thought as they were 
capable of, hoping only that the new departure 
would not long remain '' a spring shut up, 
a fountain sealed." For this they had not 
long to wait, for soon there happened in the 
Lewis one of the most wonderful revivals ot 
the century. The Scottish Church had hitherto 
occupied itself chiefly with religion in the 
abstract. The broader minds had now come 
to understand that there is a sphere of 
''applied" religion as truly as of ''applied" 
mathematics. They were beginning to recog- 
nise that religion comprises in the true range 
of its operations the whole of human life. 
Yet the Westminster Confession still reigned 
unchallenged. The clergy and the elders sub- 
scribed it, and the immortal Shorter Catechism, 
which has done so much to train the Scottish 
mind in metaphysics, carried its theology into 
every school and home. People thought in 
the categories of Calvinism. Things happened 
because God had so ordained. Faith was His 
gift, and to it men were elected. Unless so 
elected, their names could not be written in 
the book of life. Original sin was as worthy 
of death as actual, for all were involved in 



EARLY YEARS. 5 

the guilt of Adam's transgression. The Atone- 
ment was for the elect ; the men for whom 
Christ died could not but be saved ; those for 
whom He had not died could not but be lost. 
The work of the Spirit was as restricted as the 
sacrifice of the Son, and so the numbers of the 
saved and the lost were fixed beyond possi- 
bility of increase or decrease. Even as a boy 
I grieved over these harsh beliefs, this narrow- 
ing down of grace and of salvation. But I 
fear I had no sympathisers. 

The quoad sacra parish of Ness was thus 
suddenly broken up, and although born in the 
bosom of the good '' Auld Kirk," I became a 
Dissenter at a very early age. I remember the 
long walk with my parents to the baptistery, 
a temporary substitute for the new church, not 
yet built, the funds for which, according to an 
impious critic, were yet to be drawn from the 
slaves of the Southern States of America, 
where the law of compensation is exacting 
payment for the excesses of the '' Auld Kirk." 
So complete was the change in popular feeling, 
that the *' Auld Kirk" minister, whom the 
people had a short time before worshipped as 
a kind of superior being, had now hastily to 
leave manse, church, and parish. Having 
been crammed with texts from Holy Writ, they 
probably remembered one which says that the 
hireling fleeth because he is a hireling. The 



6 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

case was the same in all the rural parishes 
except that of Barvas, where the Rev. Mr. 
McRae bravely held his pulpit as a captain 
might his quarterdeck, though without sup- 
porters worth counting. Israel had taken to 
stoning her old prophets. 

In the spring-time we could see the Dundee 
whalers sailing past the Butt's Eye for Davis 
Straits, and possibly the ships Erebus and 
Terror passing to their doom in the same 
regions in search of the unsearchable North- 
west Passage, carrying Sir John Franklin and 
128 souls, destined never more to be seen by 
sorrowful friends and grateful country, and 
subsequently search expeditions in earnest 
quest of the same. But my youthful com- 
munity knew nothing beyond the optical 
vision ; knowledge of all this realisation being 
cruelly closed against them at the expense 
of religious upheaval, burning a red-hot iron 
into their brows. The Church of dour John 
Knox, of George Wishart, and of Jenny 
Geddes, sustained a severe shock. Out of 
that wreck there might come something that 
should be for the Divine glory, and praise 
will be abundantly fulfilled — 

" She let the legions thunder past, 
And plunged in thought again." 

♦* Talking of sects till late one eve, 
Of the various doctrines the saints believe — 
That night I stood in a troubled dream 
By the side of a darkly flowing stream." 



CHAPTER II. 

MY PARENTAGE AND FAMILY HISTORY 

SCHOOL-DAYS. 

About the close of my fifth year my life 
almost came to an abrupt termination. The 
sensitive heart of infancy is quick in appre- 
hension when its happiness is threatened, and 
in many secret misgivings I told myself that 
life was already finished. But I recovered, and 
became one of the healthiest of the sons of 
Adam. 

I was the third son of my mother and fifth 
child of my father. At the time of my earliest 
recollections my father was captain of his own 
boat, lived in his own house, farmed several 
acres of good land, had many sheep and cattle, 
and kept a man-servant and a horse. We 
children of the house occupied a very happy 
position in the social scale, a position open to 
all good influence, high enough to allow us to 
see about us models of good manners, of self- 
respect, of piety, and simple dignity. Amply 
furnished with all the necessarico of life, we 



8 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

had no reason for shame, as we had none for 
pride. We never knew what chronic under- 
feeding was, but we were brought up by the 
wisest of mothers in a Spartan simpHcity of 
diet, wholesome and bracing in its effect, which 
stood my physical frame in good stead in future 
years. For us the humble prayer of Agur, 
" Give me neither poverty nor riches," was 
truly realised. 

The branch of the great clan of which my 
father, Malcolm Campbell, came was not a 
direct offshoot from Argyll, but from Glenorchy, 
the Marquis of Breadalbane's district. The 
family came to Port Ness from Cape Wrath 
about the year 1663. They were the descend- 
ants of Kenneth Buey Mclver and his brother 
Farquhar, who left Argyllshire about 1560 
with a large number of clansmen, and marched 
northwards to Caithness, scouring the country 
as they went. The details of their history 
are lost in the haze of tradition. The early 
title of my clan was O'Duine, who lived 
about 1 100. 

My worthy sire himself was spare in figure, 
of active habits, an early riser, and possessed 
of much natural shrewdness and warm affection. 
He was loud-voiced and outspoken, sometimes 
utterly unreserved. This frankness and his 



EARLY YEARS. 9 

transparent honesty won for him many friends 
and admirers. Here, it was felt, was a man 
who had bravely grappled with life's earliest 
problems, to whom life was no holiday, but a 
steady march onward and upward to a goal 
assured by Christian faith. This brave faith 
he had no doubt inherited from his mother, 
Catherine Bain, who lived a noble Christian 
life. In later years, however, his sense of his 
own unworthiness became morbid, and his 
tendency to dwell on the fleetness of life and 
the approach of death gradually tinged his 
thoughts with overmuch of the Celtic melan- 
choly. As his life ebbed his religious anxieties 
caused him much suffering, which saddened 
his days more or less to the end. 

To my mother, nee Jessie Morrison, I owe 
everything, even my outward appearance, and 
appropriately my name. Her family gave 
several ministers to the church at Ness, and 
after the last of them I am called. She was 
the daughter of Allan Morrison, whose great- 
grandfather, Roderick Morrison, vv-as titulary 
proprietor of Habost and also of Ness. Thus, 
from time immemorial, her family owned the 
extreme northern point of the Lewis ; and 
their chief, Morrison of Habost, for many 
generations held the honourable position of 



10 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

hereditary breithcamh, or judge, over the whole 
of Lewis down to the year a.d. 1613. The 
nature of my ancestor's judgeship is described 
by Sir R. Gordon in explaining the office 
of a breive among the islanders: — **The 
breive is a kind of a judge, who hath an 
absolute judicatorie, unto whose authoritie 
and censure they willinglie submit themselves 
when he determineth any debateable question 
between partie and partie." "^ That learned 
man of law Sir Alexander Morrison, who 
is quoted as an authority to the present day, 
no doubt derived his tastes from his ancestor, 
the Ness breive. For a badge the Morrisons 
have a drift log, '' sqoidchladaich," suggested 
by the logs which the storms of the Atlantic 
cast ashore at Ness. No other clan has this 
badge. Their coat of arms consists of — 
argent, three Moors' heads, couped, sable, 
banded of the first ; crest, three Saracens' 
heads, conjoined in one neck proper, the 
faces looking to the chief dexter and sinister 
sides of the shield f ; motto, " Pretio prudentia 
praestat " (" Prudence predominates over price ' ') . 
The tradition attached to this crest and coat 
of arms tells how my worthy and rugged 

* See Sir R. Gordon's " Earl of Sutherland," p. 268. 
t See Burke's " Heraldic Dictionary." 



EARLY YEARS. ii 

ancestor the MacGhillie Mhoire, at the siege 
of Acre in 1191, was seen to fly before three 
Saracens, who attacked him together. His 
flight, however, was but a feint, and when 
he had drawn them far enough from their 
supporters, he turned and slew them one by 
one. The saying went round the Christian 
army, '' One More from Scotland is more than 
a match for three pagan Moors,'' and from this 
the heraldic bearings were devised. 

The titular proprietorship of Habost remained 
in my mother's family till her great-grand- 
father's time on the sublet system, which was 
abolished as the population increased. The 
father of this last proprietor deserves a few 
words to himself. He was the Hercules of the 
island, a man of immense physical proportions 
and enormous strength. His voice and manner 
suggested a constitution of iron and health 
so impregnable that no insurance office dealing 
in life annuities would have ventured to look 
him in the face. He was thought good for 
nine lives at least ; there seemed no possible 
avenue where death or disease could force a 
breach. Yet so poor is the anchorage of 
human hopes that, amid all these anticipations, 
this Scotch granite ancestor of mine suddenly 
struck his flag and died at the comparatively 



12 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

early age of sixty years. Angus Gunn had 
promised him two hundred. He seemed built 
in an antediluvian type and for age-long 
duration, yet he did not reach even the modest 
span allotted by the Psalmist. 

For the rest the story of my ancestry rests 
upon Angus Gunn's somewhat hazy version, 
and I do not propose to give rein to my Celtic 
imagination in making it more precise. Being 
a Scot, I have naturally begun with a pedigree, 
but the reader will admit that this is but a 
very small ell of the genealogical tree. 

During my childhood my mother suffered 
for some years from ill-health. But she was 
still erect, dignified, graceful in person, and 
possessed of admirable beauty of countenance. 
Her dark eyes had a striking lambency, her 
smile inspired love, the habit of her genial 
mind was to reflect the moods of others and 
seek to make them happy, never thinking of 
herself, and all this she did with singular tact 
and a playful, simple grace. Utterly incapable 
of servility or obsequiousness, her gifted and 
lofty nature was always in peace and charity. 
Contentment with all around her was stamped 
upon her countenance and mien. Yet there 
was no weakness in her character, and, like 
Cromwell's mother, she could exhibit in a 



EARLY YEARS. 13 

marked degree, when other assistance failed 
her, the noble faculty of self-help. Such was 
my mother, a wise and noble woman. She 
has passed away like the setting sun. Suns 
do not set to die, but to rise again ; and so 
would it be with the setting sun of what we 
called the dream and drama of life. 

The whirligig of time goes round, and there 

comes a truce even to religious disputes. The 

disruption agitation which had closed the 

schools ended at last, and left calm in the 

island. But I was in my tenth year before 

I began to study the curves and angles of the 

Roman alphabet. It was by no means an 

easy task after several years of truantry to 

sit quietly most of the day facing those horrible 

letters. Many a time I might well have wished 

that Cadmus, King of Thebes, had never been 

born to afflict future generations in far-off 

isles of the sea with his abhorred alphabet. 

My reason and my imagination lay prisoners, 

held down by the most depressed spirit that 

ever tenanted the frame of a boy. I was not 

of a disposition, however, to give in easily, 

and I fell upon a scheme for making peace 

with my tormentors. At play-time I ran to 

the sea-shore, book and stick in hand, and 

drew the outlines of my foes upon the sand. 



14 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

Gradually I became familiar, nay friendly, 
with them, and my hatred gave place to a 
sense of their usefulness and worth. 

I remember one of my companions who 
shared my difficulties, but fell upon a very 
different scheme for overcoming them. Never 
was the study of hieroglyphics attacked by a 
method so original and so bold. He was not 
a stupid boy at play, though bewildered into 
imbecility by the task of learning. He was 
not an ordinary boy, however, and had a pair 
of ice-coloured, ball-less eyes, and various other 
abnormal characteristics, including apparently 
the digestion of an ostrich. For one night, 
being in despair over this unconquerable 
alphabet, he carefully cut out the twenty-seven 
abstruse symbols, put them inside a piece of 
dough, and ate them. Alas that the morning 
light brought no solution of his difficulties ! 
He never learnt his letters. Had Nature flung 
him forth upon the world, with his poor dis- 
tracted brain, in some mood of cruel sport, 
or had she given him a double share of her 
own secret, so that he needed no other teacher ? 
Perhaps it was so. 

Our teacher had of course been imported 
from the mainland, and I very soon observed 
that he looked upon his pupils as inferior 



EARLY YEARS. 15 

beings. This, of course, made sympathy 
impossible between us, and was a serious 
bar to progress. There was no compulsory 
attendance, and only those boys went to school 
whose inborn love of knowledge led them to do 
so of their own free will. Parents seldom 
attempted to enforce daily attendance, clinging 
still to the primitive idea that the less educated 
a boy was, the less chance there was of his 
leaving the island. The only compulsory item 
in our school attendance was the daily con- 
tribution of a peat for the schoolroom fire. 
The boy who came without his peat under his 
arm was absolutely refused admittance. 

As for the matter of his teaching, there 
was but one subject : the faults of the lately 
adored '* Auld Kirk" and the perfections of 
the new regime. Since the days of the dis- 
ruption sectarianism racked the whole island. 
Still the former way of thinking had its sup- 
porters, and there was room for bitter con- 
troversy. People lived at enmity within the 
same house, sitting at the same fireside, and 
probably praying silent, bitter prayers to the 
same Providence. But even our instruc- 
tion in ecclesiastical differences was soon cut 
short. One day several of us lingered over- 
long at our play, and were late in returning 



i6 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

to school. The teacher thereupon assumed 
his prerogative of using the *' tawse," and 
punished us somewhat severely. Among the 
culprits were the minister's children. This 
outrage on the dignity of the ministerial office 
was unpardonable, and the teacher, unfor- 
tunately for him, and also for me, was instantly 
dismissed. Once more I was thrown back, 
and my hopes of learning disappointed just 
when they were at their highest. For only 
a few days before I had, by dint of hard work, 
been awarded a prize-book for exceptional 
diligence in study, and surely never did man 
or boy feel more honoured since the days ol 
Mordecai the Jew. But again I was to feel 
the pinch of the shoe, not in money, but in 
education. 

I was not to be beaten, however, and I made 
a firm resolution that a task of reading should 
be performed regularly each day. From that 
day I was my own master and my own pupil. 
I had my own thoughts, and faced for myselt 
the problems that met me. The discipline ol 
it all was good for me. "The virtue lies in 
the struggle, not in the prize." 

As a result of the religious upheaval in the 
island the resources of the people had been 
heavily drawn upon to provide a new Free 



EARLY YEARS. 17 

Church. A manse was as yet beyond the 
reach of the community, and the minister was 
accommodated in the house of the miller. 
In Scotland there is an extraordinary respect 
and honour paid to a Free Church minister, the 
more perhaps because he is so often a son of 
the people who has raised himself by his work 
and his exertions to this highly esteemed 
position. The mere accent of the word 
**menister" suggests deification, and his pre- 
sence produces an effect of awe. Unfortunately 
the miller proved unworthy of the honour con- 
ferred upon his house, and, what was more 
serious, unworthy of his place among a simple. 
God-fearing, and honest-living folk. When his 
offence against the hitherto unimpeachable 
moral tone of the community was discovered, 
he was summoned before the minister and Kirk 
session and ruthlessly excommiunicated. He 
was driven from the parish and the island, and 
if the will of the minister and Kirk session 
could have brought it about, would have been 
summarily transported to Van Diemen's Land 
under sentence of penal servitude for life, with 
a strong recommendation for eternal punish- 
ment. ''Then gently scan your brother- 
man " was scarcely the motto of these stern 
judges. 

S.K. C 



i8 THE FATHER OF^^ST. KILDA. 

That there was a lack of justice as well as 
of charity in the local ideas of righteousness 
was evident from their appreciation of the new 
miller. He was a man after the heart of the 
religious community, — a Free Kirk elder in 
whom should be no guile. Yet in a larger 
view he can hardly be said to have obliterated 
the stain left by his predecessor upon the mill- 
house. For he had not been long its tenant 
before he showxd that his special besetting sin 
of covetousness was likely to work as much 
evil as his predecessor's. By his influence 
thirty acres of land were taken at one stroke 
from his neighbours without any abatement 
of rent, and walled round in solid security. 
He then sought to evict from this stolen strong- 
hold of his, two families who had lived there 
for generations. One of the cottages belonged 
to a man called Shiemas Oig, and so dis- 
tracted with grief was he at the thought of 
being compelled to leave his home that his 
mind became quite unhinged, and for the rest 
of his life he was a hopeless lunatic. His wife 
was compelled to earn a livelihood as she 
could, and betook herself to the unlawful prac- 
tice of shebeening whisky ; while Ian Bain, the 
other dispossessed cottager, soon found rest 
in death. I am far from saying that the elder 



EARLY YEARS. ig 

acted thus because he was an elder. He was 
merely one of those who try to serve two 
masters, and being keenly conscious that there 
was a sphere of self-interest as well as a sphere 
of religion, he wished to fix an anchor on some- 
thing that had promise for the present as well 
as on assurance for the future. 

Yet a religious revival of extraordinary 
intensity had accompanied this man's arrival 
in the parish. Daily labours, family duties, 
all ordinary avocations, were neglected. For 
the day of judgment was at hand, bringing 
with it the end of all things mortal. The 
metrical version of the Psalms of David was 
studied and repeated with earnestness and 
zeal, but as for other reading, what was it 
but a lie, dishonourable to the Supreme, and 
disgraceful in a professing Christian ? All 
innocent amusement was deemed as out of 
place as a ballet dance during an earthquake. 
Plato himself turned Puritan would have felt 
that too perfect attainment brings despair 
when attainment means the laying to heart 
of the Shorter Catechism, surely, as it seems to 
me, the work of befogged theologians delibe- 
rately sitting down to invent an instrument of 
torture for the immature intelligence. Very 
young I had to digest as best I could the Ten 

c a 



20 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

Commandments as given to Moses, and even 
the stronger meat of effectual callings and such 
doctrines. I asked my mother once why all com- 
municants at the Lord's Supper were old. ' ' Be- 
cause they know what they are doing, and are 
responsible," she said. '* They are not any 
betteroff than the others," I replied. '* They go 
at their peril, and if they stay away, it is at their 
peril. Tell me how they are saved thus." I was 
promptly sent supperless to bed for my logic. 

Yet this revival of Calvinistic severity had 
no effect in putting an end to the superstitions 
which still lingered among the people. My 
father, the son, as I have already said, of a 
notably Christian mother, Kate Bain, tells 
that when he was a young man one of the 
last duties he had to perform each evening at 
twilight was to carry a pot of milk to a hillock 
hard by, and pour it over the fairy abodes. 
There they held high court in their palace 
beneath the fairy hill, and from there they 
sallied forth at night, to do good or evil 
according as they had been used : to bake 
and spin and work for favoured mortals while 
they slept; oftener to wreak revengeful spite 
on those who had failed to propitiate them, 
and to carry off the young and fair to their 
mysterious hillock abodes, around which 



EARLY YEARS. 21 

weird strains of fairy music might at times 
be heard. 

Of my own knowledge I can record one 
serious example of extreme superstition in my 
own parish. A young man was very " sweet " 
upon a maiden, and the "cries" were almost in 
view when suddenly his mother turned round 
on the bride elect, and openly accused her 
mother and aunt of witchcraft. They had, 
she declared, obtained licence from the devil, 
and, transformed into hares, had sucked the 
cream from the teats of the cow, carried it 
home, and made all the butter they required, 
and more. The young man, "full of all 
subtlety and mischief," as St. Paul says, was 
nothing loath to take up the task of proving 
his mother in the right. He made two false 
assumptions, however, which proved disastrous 
to his attempts. In the first place, he took for 
granted that, as the girl's mother was lame, he 
would know her even in hare shape by this 
peculiarity ; and, in the second place, he believed 
that the girl vStill loved him enough to save him 
from being torn to pieces by the witches, whom 
she would no doubt accompany in order to 
learn the dark art. One evening, as he set off 
to court another girl, two witch hares and a 
leveret met him, which compelled a hasty 



22 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

retreat. After arming himself with a boat's 
hehu, he undauntedly set out again to the new 
ground of his choice. But he had not gone 
far before the witches made a second attack, 
and before they had done with him they 
tore out by the roots every hair that God 
had planted on his big head. He was after- 
wards carried, more dead than alive, to a 
neighbour's house, where he slept twice round 
the clock, so great was the relief aftdr the 
night's tension. Cunningly he shaved him- 
self to support his mother's superstition, but 
nature betrayed his scheme by a copious 
growth of hair. 

Tales of this kind sort badly with the tenets 
of strict Calvinism, but these simple islanders 
found room in their believing hearts for both. 
Witchcraft is older than Calvinism. It has 
had a longer hold on the minds of men. The 
historical research of our own day has failed to 
find its origin. It has been with the human 
race from the beginning. 

The world is indeed a slow learner. Happily 
it has an infinitely patient Teacher. Happily, 
too, we have the assurance that things are 
moving towards a glorious consummation when 
superstition and error shall be driven away, 
and when God shall reconcile all things unto 



EARLY YEARS. 23 

HlnivSelf, whether they be things in earth or 
things in heaven. 

But if superstition did not retreat before 
rehgion, education did. The schools were 
closed. Once more, as had happened before, 
our juvenile energy was frittered away on unin- 
telligible metaphysics and theology when we 
ought to have been acquiring a solid grounding 
in reading, writing, and arithmetic. The 
monotony of the continual '' spiritual" instruc- 
tion became well-nigh unbearable. It produced 
a kind of intellectual squint, and utterly 
deadened the imagination. It was especially 
hard on such a temperament as mine, for I 
was always of a romantic turn and saw realities 
through a glamour of my own creating. I 
lived in a future of my own imagining — a 
future of far travel and strange experience, 
for which it was my whole longing and desire 
to prepare myself. Yet knowledge seemed to 
be refused me, and despairing presentiments 
darkened my whole life at this period, though 
never without intermittent flashes of hope. 
All my experience of life leads me to believe 
with Goethe that our wishes are but the expres- 
sion of our capacities and harbingers of our 
future attainments. 

The '' Auld Kirk" had become anathema 



24 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

maranatha to the people, for the Free Church 
were eager to find another God for themselves 
by mental or spiritual process ! Indeed, we 
were always on the qtii vive for a spiritual 
convulsion. That the social state of the entire 
community was truly indescribable goes with- 
out saying, and I mentally anathematise the 
day in which I was born. 

From the grand humanism of the minister 
down to the fancies of whimsical mystics, who 
hold that it is even a sin to wear garments, 
and believe that heaven is only about six miles 
off, we had a little more than enough religion 
to make us hate, but not enough to make us 
love, one another. The very whisper of the 
" Auld Kirk" intoxicated the people and de- 
prived them of all faculties of examination and 
judgment. Why, it seemed to my youthful 
intelligence but a day of wrath, the true gospel 
of charity for the moment being sealed. Nay, 
I go farther, that if any man had lost his 
religion, let him repair to this island, and I 
warrant him he would find it. On the other 
hand, I had almost said, too, if any man had a 
religion, let him but come hither, and I warrant 
him also he would go pretty near to lose it. 
Nevertheless the spirit of religion bloweth 
where it Usteth, like the wind. We cannot tell 



EARLY YEARS. 25 

whence it cometh or whither it goeth. It would 
not be religion if we could calculate it and 
reduce it to measure, not because the Divine 
nature is what it is, but because human nature 
is what it is. I see before me the ancient 
Church of St. Peter and the Temple of St. 
Thomas, whose crumbled walls have had 
shelter from the arctic blasts, behind the 
high black granite rocky ledges of the Butt, 
for countless years. Their architects, builders, 
and worshippers — pagan, Druidical, and Chris- 
tian — have passed away with their different 
views of the gods they served, in accordance 
with the inexorable laws of nature, in the 
unwritten history of their time. We must 
follow them in our harsh Calvinistic views of 
God, whose nature is all love and tenderness. 
But these crumbling walls remain, which are 
now, by an unknown instinct, made immortal, 
if not classic, by one born out of season. 
Tradition says that both were built by means 
of the sin of Sabbath-breaking, the islanders 
having begun that process from the year in 
which St. Columba visited the island, and 
continued it successfully for centuries. In 
those early times those who felt a necessary 
duty, or an overmastering desire to milk or 
even graze their cows on Sundays, had to pay 



26 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

a toll to the Church for permission to sin. 
Alas ! with all our religion, persons now 
desirous of breaking the Sabbath here may 
learn from this that they can do so without 
licence or toll. It will be nothing short of a 
miracle if the full depth of this change has not 
yet to be plumbed, and if a few disagreeable 
surprises are not still in store for the gullible 
'' Auld Kirk " — going away from God to God ! 
Once more my hopes were raised high by 
the unexpected arrival of a second teacher. 
Alas ! his teaching was but a drop in the 
ocean. His system was the same as his pre- 
decessor's, and his fate not unlike. This time 
the ground of his dismissal was some sec- 
tarian bitterness, arising directly from the 
presence of the minister's son in the school. 
Assuredly that Free Church Moses of ours had 
a wonderful influence, and in his son we felt 
that he had brought an '' olive branch " which, 
by some malign miracle, was turned into a 
fiery serpent. He may have had the theology 
of Thomas Aquinas and the wisdom ol 
Aristotle, but he was certainly sadly lacking 
in tact and taste. There was no originality 
in his views, though much Scotch shrewdness 
and humour in the language in which he 
clothed them. But, whatever the cause, his 



EARLY YEARS. 27 

power over the people was extraordinary. 
Humour under control is a valuable element 
in a minister, and many will admit that the 
sense of humour in private intercourse is even 
good. It is pathetic to think, however, what 
crises would have been tided over, and what 
'* removals" avoided, if only ministers had 
sometimes been readier for amusement than 
vexation. Yet the people are to blame, the 
crazy fanatics, the hard children of this world. 
He came to the parish something after the 
fashion that James Nayler rode into Bristol 
in 1656. This is not, perhaps, a very becoming 
way to speak of a man, but let me assure the 
reader, there is more lucidity than intentional 
disrespect in the phrase. 



CHAPTER III. 

I RUN AWAY FROM HOME — THE RETURN OF THE 

PRODIGAL DEATH OF MY MOTHER BAN- 

TRACH DHOMHNIULL ROY. 

"Time wasted in youth is one of the mistakes which are 
beyond correction." 

At the millhouse was a young man-servant 
from Stornoway, between whom and myself 
a strong mutual liking had sprung up, more 
than a liking, indeed, rather a love as of David 
and Jonathan. In recalHng it I am reminded 
of Montaigne's words regarding his friendship 
with La Boetie, *' having seized all my will, 
induced the same to plunge and lose itself in 
his, which likewise, having seized all his will, 
induced it to plunge and lose itself in mine, with 
a mutual greed and with a like concurrence." 
Accordingly, when my friend found an engage- 
ment in the stables of the proprietor close to 
Lewis Castle, and near his home, he found no 
great difficulty in persuading me to elope with 
him across the moor, and in a few days I, too, 
was installed in the service of the first baronet 



EARLY YEARS. 29 

of Achany, in the proud position of ''herd 
loon." 

There is a story of a British Premier's 
reply to a member of his party who expressed 
disappointment at receiving no higher honour 
than knighthood. " I assure you," said the 
Premier, "you are underrating the honour ot 
knighthood. It satisfied Sir Walter Raleigh 
and Sir Isaac Newton." 

Like the discontented member, I was not 
satisfied with the honour I had received, though 
the position of " herd loon " on the proprietor's 
estate would have been knighthood to many a 
Scotch lad. I spent my days alone in a large 
walled park of about forty acres, having as sole 
companions a dozen or more of Irish cows. 
I had plenty of time to spare for deep medita- 
tions, the first and foremost subject being my 
future prospects. Vague and empty they 
seemed as the great field in which I roamed. 
I saw other lads passing and repassing to and 
from school, and grief and anger at my own 
deprivation possessed me so that, like Job of 
old, I cursed the day I was born. At last out 
of my daily meditations grew the audacious 
resolution to ask the bailiff to allow me to go 
to school two hours in the forenoon and two 
in the afternoon. In return I was willing to 



30 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

sacrifice all my wages, though, indeed, I had 
no idea what these were to be, my friend having 
settled the matter for me. I was prepared to 
point out to the bailiff that, as the park was 
walled, my being there made no difference 
whatever to the cows ; they would eat and 
digest just as much grass in my absence as in 
my presence. 

I went to Sandy Buey, the bailiff. He received 
my plea with a smile, which showed me that 
my proposition was to be left indefinitely uncon- 
sidered. A higher authority, however, was 
over the understeward, the inexorable estate 
factor himself. And with bated breath and 
beating heart, and limbs quivering like an 
aspen leaf, to him I went. A perilous business 
I felt it to be to face a man so powerful and 
in reHgious matters, as I had been taught, so 
** unsound." 

On being ushered into the august presence 
of the titular governor of the Long Island, I 
felt as if seized by a sudden attack of lockjaw. 
The mere glance of the great man seemed to 
ask a dozen angry questions. "Who is this 
stripling ? Where has he come from ? What 
does he want in my office ? Show him the door 
and the street." Being told by the usher that 
I came from the " Square," he sharply asked 



EARLY YEARS. 31 

my business. Drawing my slender frame up 
to its full height, I boldly repeated the logical 
proposition concerning the cows and the grass 
which the bailiff had treated with such scant 
respect. His face, anything but amiable in 
his better moods, gathered itself into a grimness 
altogether terrifying. " You impudent fellow, 
your audacity surpasses anything in my 
experience. Do you think I am going to feed 
and pay you to go to school ? You could learn 
nothing if you did go to school. Fishing and 
planting a few potatoes need no schooling. 
Nonsense ! Impudence ! Away with you 
instantly ! " But I did not go. I pled long 
and earnestly, asking at last but one hour 
daily. But my remonstrances might as well 
have been addressed to the stones of the street 
for all the impression they made upon him. 
Finally he got so angry that he told me he 
would send me to prison instead of to school 
if I did not leave his office sharp, for he didn't 
want an idiot in his service. It was doubtless 
his modesty that led him to waive his own 
claim to that distinction. The threat of prison 
was more alarming to me than even the 
monotonous prospect of watching the cows eat 
grass, so, choosing the least of two evils, I 
then and there threw down the seals of office, 



32 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

with the title and emoluments, of *' herd loon " 
upon the floor, and speedily found myself in 
the street, a knight errant in earnest, a paladin 
drifted into the wrong century. 

One might have been inclined to think that 
a man of education would have treated my 
request, however unreasonable, at least with 
good temper. But he did me a better turn 
than either of us guessed at the moment. 
Truly there was a merciful Pilot at the helm 
of my affairs, and the casting out of this 
Ishmael was a blessing in disguise. A 
calamity at the time was really the greatest 
stroke of luck which had ever happened to me. 

I walked about the streets of Stornoway, 
down to where the point of rock juts out into 
the bay. At the end of this point stands the 
ancient ruined castle. Many a woeful and 
romantic tale lies buried there, irrecoverably 
lost to history. The slope behind this point is 
covered now with buildings in substantial blue 
granite masonry, topped by the grand ''auld 
kirk," the only indestructible one in the island, 
with steeple pointing heavenwards as if to defy 
disruptionists to all eternity. Opposite, on the 
west side of the bay, stood the lordly castle of 
the new proprietor. If I had gone to him with 
my proposition, doubtless I should have fared 



EARLY YEARS. 33 

better. But it was not to be. A wiser Leader 
held my hand. 

In the distance I saw Arnish Rock and its 
strange beacon, where no lamp is ever lit, but 
which sends a clear light far over the sea. 
The method of reflected light is familiar enough 
now ; but, for the benefit of my unversed readers, 
I shall describe it here. 

On the mainland six hundred feet away is 
a lighthouse proper, and from a window in 
its tower a stream of light is projected on a 
mirror in the lantern on the summit of the 
Rock of Arnish. The rays are caught by an 
arrangement of prisms, and by their action 
are converged to a focus outside the lantern, 
from which point they diverge in the desired 
direction. 

It was behind this rocky point of Arnish 
that bonny Prince Charlie, wandering in 1745 
a deserted refugee, accompanied by the loyal 
and devoted Flora Macdonald, received news 
of the dour refusal of the Stearn-a-bhaigh 
authorities to extend him a welcome. There 
was comfort for the Ness ** herd loon " in the 
thought that, harshly as Stornoway had treated 
him, royalty had fared no better at its hands. 
At least I had got from it all the benefit of 
a dire experience, inexpressible experience, 

S,K, D 



34 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

before my pride was sufficiently humbled to 
allow me to return to Ness. So I said, 
** I will arise and go to my father." And 
if there was no fatted calf to kill, I got pot- 
luck and a loving mother's embrace. Yet 
discontentment had grown upon me till, like 
the pearl in the oyster, it had become a 
^'splendid disease." Nothing could be done 
for me beyond prescribing tonics for a weak 
mind, and this my mother nobly did. At 
the same time my clothes upon my back 
were falling in rents. Truly fate did its 
best to force me into a corner, and all but 
succeeded. As the parsons say, *' Here endeth 
the first lesson." 

Needless to say, no change had taken place 
in Ness during my absence. It was October 
when I returned, the month during which rural 
Lewis holds its festival of religious oratory — 
the ** Sacrament." At that time everything 
that has been done or thought or felt in the 
spiritual sphere finds its ample audible expres- 
sion. Week by week in the various valleys 
in rotation immense crowds may be seen who 
have come from all parts of the island to listen 
eagerly. It is far from my wish to speak 
slightingly of such a grand parliament of 
religion. There is no worthier subject of 



EARLY YEARS. 35 

speech nor any that has inspired nobler utter- 
ances. A Chrysostom in Greek, a Savonarola 
in Italian, a Massillon in French, a Whitefield 
in English, a Christmas Evans in Welsh, and 
such men as Peter McLean, of Stornoway, and 
John Kennedy (both of whom I remember) in 
GaeHc — these have produced effects on the 
human heart by the handling of this theme 
such as are not to be paralleled in political, 
or any other, oratory. This power of the 
spoken word is one of the primal forces among 
men, and will not die out, but remain one of 
the chief governing powers of the world. 

No listener among our glens ever tired of 
these sermons. The people had a thirst for 
sermons, four hours long, or more, as they 
might be. And, truly, the open-air temple 
is so surrounded by that which is most beauti- 
ful that it is made easy through Nature to 
commune with Nature's God. Indeed, I am 
of opinion that fishermen are emphatically of 
a religious turn of mind. The nature of their 
employment is more calculated to direct their 
thoughts inward than is the case in most 
other industries. The solitary work of the 
miners in the bowels of the earth, one might 
think, would have a similar tendency ; but 
there is no evidence in mining districts that 

D 2 



36 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

religion has more than ordinary influence in 
regulating the lives of the people. In both 
it may, however, be said to act thus: *' wrest 
from life its uses and gather from life its 
beauty." I have never forgotten Peter 
McLean's text, ''Anns an la sin bithidh tobar 
air fhosgladh do thigh Dhaibhidh, agus do 
luchd-aiteachaidh Jerusaliem, air son peacaidh 
agus air son neoghloine " (Zech. xiii. i). This 
good man was an emotional, even passionate, 
preacher. In fluency and fervour he has pro- 
bably been surpassed by none. His voice was 
remarkably clear, vibrating, and penetrating, 
so as to thrill through the largest church, and 
there was no chance of any one's dozing when 
he was in the pulpit. When denouncing some 
wrong which had roused his indignation his 
feelings seemed to get the better of him, and 
he ''slashed" with his voice in a perfect 
hurricane of verbal blows. My hair felt as 
if it rose on end. He carried his hearers in 
chariots of fire. He bore down on their 
conscience with irresistible and overwhelming 
power. He was the Michael Angelo of the 
pulpit in Lewis. 

John Kennedy, of Dingwall, was more refined 
and scholarly, brimming with knowledge, and 
a master of beautiful illustration. His style 



EARLY YEARS. 37 

was highly imaginative, and his gestures free 
and graceful. One illustration I specially 
noted and remembered. His text was '' Agus 
thubhairt mi ris. A Thighearn, tha fhios 
agadas. Agus thubhairt e rium, Is iad so 
iadsan a thainig a' hamhghar mor ; agus nigh 
iad an trusgain, agus rinn iad geal iad ann am 
fuil an Uain " (Rev. vii. 14). His subject was 
tribulation, and explaining that the word came 
from the Latin tribiUtun, meaning a roller or 
sledge for threshing corn, he showed that in 
the same way tribulation sifts men as wheat. 

But the people of my native parish would do 
well if they would, like the Moravians, make 
Christ the Inspirer of fishing, housekeeping, 
and ploughing, as well as of psalms and prayers. 
Still it is no disadvantage that there is in their 
character underneath the genuinely religious 
qualities a basis of worldly wisdom and homely 
prudence which will never fail to have its 
value. 

To turn to the elders, — ornaments to any 
cause. In addition to their duties in catechis- 
ing the whole parish, a most trying ordeal 
awaited them at Communion. For the pre- 
siding minister might turn up the Bible at any 
place where the leaves might chance to open, 
and call upon one of the elders to address the 



38 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

multitude on a certain verse of which he had 
no more intimation than of the day of his 
death. After an oration of an hour or more 
the speaker had the privilege of choosing 
a text in the same haphazard manner and 
calling upon a brother elder to discourse upon 
it, and so on, until all the Kirk session had 
shown their expository paces. That such a 
system was possible shows how deeply these 
men must have drunk in early life at the foun- 
tains of Scripture, stimulated partly by training 
and habit, partly by the inborn religious 
instincts of their race. Truly their knowledge 
of the Scriptures might put to shame many 
ministers of the gospel. It was no small 
reproach to the Church and the Sustentation 
Fund that all those arduous duties" which should 
by right devolve upon those who receive its 
emoluments were undertaken without remu- 
neration merely out of whole-souled devotion 
and exemplary zeal. Such was their single- 
ness of purpose that, with but one exception, 
no friction ever arose among them. This is 
worth recording for the attention of those out- 
side of the highlands and islands. This alone 
proves them to have been worthy Christian 
men, among whom conscience was supreme. 
This Communion season was exceptionally 



EARLY YEARS. 39 

memorable to me, for it was the last which my 
mother saw. The winter that followed was 
extremely cold, and her illness, already of 
long duration, became increasingly alarming, 
making it evident that nothing could be done 
but await with resignation and patience the 
approaching end. The end did come, on 
Christmas Eve, 1858, and she began her 
eternity of rest, a golden circle, like the ring 
upon her dying finger, without breach or 
ending. When the long-dreaded blow fell, 
which no agony of suspense, no schooling of 
philosophy, no practice of Christian submission, 
can altogether soften, I was prostrated by an 
insidious malady. A cold winter's blast off the 
Atlantic Ocean, a wind that might have swept 
the fields of death for a million years, was 
heard outside as I came to look at her. The 
winter's wind, the image of death, the imagina- 
tion of the heavenly Jerusalem, have been 
inextricably mingled in my thoughts ever 
since. There was the angel - face. They 
told me the features had not changed. Had 
they not ? The serene and noble forehead — 
that might be the same. But the frozen 
eyelids, the awful darkness that gathered 
beneath them, the marble lips, the stiffening 
hands laid palm to palm as if in the last 



40 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

solemn supplication — had these not changed ? 
Was that my mother as in life ? Verily in 
death there lies a mute, ineffable, voiceless 
horror before which all human courage is 
abashed. Yet it was not fear, but awe, that fell 
upon me as I looked, for I saw, not the visible 
symbol of mortality, but the great promise 
of eternity encircling and bearing upwards 
into the far heavens the departed spirit. 
Hastily I kissed the cold lips that I should 
kiss no more, and slunk away from the 
house with stealthy steps, like a guilty thing. 
" Be calm, good wind ; blow not a word 
away." The love which is altogether holy 
between child and mother is no doubt privi- 
leged to linger through life and revisit by 
glimpses the sunshine and the darkness of 
dechning years. Thus I felt that if the intel- 
ligence given by a kind Creator, and nourished 
by her, were not to be altogether obliterated, 
the hearty desire to do justice to her memory 
should always remain with me. Nay, from 
the moment I left her grave I had but one 
hope : that she whose spirit was watching 
my humble endeavours might not watch 
in vain. 

After my mother's funeral no power on earth 
could persuade me to return home. Grief had 



EARLY YEARS. 41 

swollen into indignation. The gap that had 
been left seemed cruel and unjust. I hated 
the place that had witnessed her death. A 
widow relative locally known as Bantrach 
Dhomhniull Roy (widow of Red Donald) took 
me into her home, where, like Elijah the Tish- 
bite, I ** did eat many days, and the barrel of 
meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil 
fail." Unlike the son of the widow who 
received Elijah, however, the son of my widow 
was far from home. He had been locally known 
as ** the reader," and had, fortunately for me, left 
many of his books behind, all of which were 
welcome. I soon became an omnivorous 
reader, desultory certainly, though in the cir- 
cumstances that was scarcely a fault. The 
receptive faculty was developed in me at the 
expense of the creative, but patience and per- 
severance had cultivated the habit of taking 
trouble. Truly it was an invigorating time. 
There is no happier or healthier sensation for 
a young man than that of sailing on an even 
keel to knowledge and culture. In downright 
earnest I set about getting the best out of my- 
self, and by some process which I cannot explain 
I found myself changed from an inveterate 
shirker of hard work into an earnest toiler. 
I began to realise how much of labour and 



42 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

energy must be put into any task if it is to turn 
out well. 

I had two idols in my rustic library. Sir 
Walter Scott's simplicity and genius in story- 
telling entirely wafted me away from Ness and 
from the island. Nay, I needed no food when 
I had him. He offered me, as it were, a 
spiritual sustenance, so that I forgot the 
earthly. But my great hero was Charles XII. 
of Sweden. His Life fortunately was among 
the books in the widow's cottage, and I 
devoured it. It made a deep impression upon 
me, and had an influence over all my future 
career. It was not the story of his wars which 
attracted me so much as the Spartan heroism 
of his character. He inspired me with the 
idea of triumphing over weakness and weari- 
ness and pain. To train the body to bear all 
manner of hardships, to bathe in ice or face 
the burning sun indifferently, to discipline the 
physical powers by gymnastics, to despise the 
niceties of food and drink, to make of the body, 
as it were, an instrument of finely tempered steel, 
and yet have it at the same time absolutely at 
the disposition of the mind — that seemed to me 
indeed a course of training worthy of a hero. 
I set myself to imitate him, and succeeded at 
least in so far as to be quite indifferent to the 



EARLY YEARS. 43 

Circumstances of my personal environment, and 
to form the habit of never admitting difficulties 
to be disabilities. All this had its developing 
influence on a slow-growing brain, not of a 
singular vigour, but of assimilative capacity. 

After a few months of this silent education, I 
heard of a young man, a highly respectable and 
worthy fellow, who was about to leave Ness 
for the inhospitable regions of the Hudson 
Bay Company's territory. He had already 
spent five years there. My whole nature 
centred itself in one ardent longing that he 
should ask me to go with him. This wish was 
soon fulfilled, and in a few weeks I found my- 
self sailing under the Cape Wrath lighthouse, 
en route to join the Company's ships in Hoy's 
Sound. I was but meagrely equipped with 
knowledge after all, and had scarcely even 
the education necessary for a commercial 
life. My little store of books consisted of the 
Bible; Johnson's Pocket Dictionary; Lennie's 
Grammar; a book on travels, presented by 
Mr. Roderick Morrison, banker, my Company's 
agent at Stornoway, and a distant relative of 
my mother's. I had, too, an important docu- 
ment — the Free Church minister's certificate 
of character, without which no person leaving 
the island could hope for any success either 



44 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

in this world or that which is to come. I 
quote it in full : — 

** I hereby certify that the bearer, Roderick 
Campbell, is unmarried" (at sixteen years of 
age !), '4s a bright lad, of more than ordinarily 
studious habits, and is of spotless character, as 
far as known to me." 

Signature and date duly appended. 

Surely after that I could not but sing my 
Te Detiin Laudamus and pass on at once to 
fame and fortune. 

And thus the story of my adventures begins 
and that of my early days concludes, in which, 
though I have had much to say, the impatient 
reader may, perhaps, have thought there was 
but little to tell. Yet they have a value of 
their own, which shall not be easily forgotten 
by one who sighs and dreams of a strange past. 



CHAPTER IV. 

FROM LEWIS TO HUDSON BAY. 

A SPIRIT of confidence on going into battle 
is either the most valuable or the most 
dangerous of weapons. Under certain con- 
ditions it is almost a guarantee of victory, 
that is while it acts as a tonic and braces nerve 
and muscle. The moment it has the effect of 
relaxing endeavour it becomes, alas ! a mere 
presage of disaster. For me my new prospects 
meant a heavy weight upon my shrinking 
nerves and spirits. I felt that this venture was 
fraught with far-reaching consequences, as yet 
beyond my power to calculate, but which gave 
me much concern, chiefly when I thought of 
those I had left behind me at home. I must 
not disappoint them ! But who can be con- 
fident of victory, especially of the kind of 
victory which enables a penniless boy to go out 
into the world to seek his fortune and return a 
rich man ? Did it all depend on a mere 
chance ? Surely not. The antithesis between 
good luck and ill is marked enough, but no 



46 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

more so than that between virtue and vice, 
which need not be a matter of chance. There 
must be a sure foundation behind success, a 
foundation of moral courage, energy, character. 
The prayer of the CromwelHan divines, ^'that 
those that have zeal may have wisdom, and 
those that have wisdom may have zeal," sup- 
plied me with a motto. 

These thoughts troubled me to the extent of 
feverish nights and morning headaches, but 
they were working slowly in the upbuilding of 
character, crude enough as yet and sorely 
buffeted about by storms of youthful conceit, 
discontentment, and prejudice against anything 
and almost everything. But I niade up my 
mind that all the ability, the zeal, the single- 
ness of purpose, I could command was to be 
concentrated in the effort to succeed. Yet I 
was conscious of being but an ordinary lad, 
and felt that my thoughts and hopes were pos- 
sibly premature and over-sanguine, as certainly 
I found them liable to many changes. But, such 
as they were, they formed my faith and purpose, 
which, by God's help, I meant to maintain. I 
quoted to myself the verse from Whittier — 

'* I know not where these islands lift 
Their fronded palms in air ; 
I only know I cannot drift 
Beyond His love and care." 



FROM LEWIS TO HUDSON BAY. 47 

As we sailed into the Sound of Hoy we found 
the Company's two ships the Prince of Walcs^ 
bound for York Factory, and the Prince Rupert, 
for Moose Factory, at anchor off the ancient 
town of Stromness, the most picturesque place 
in the Orkneys. It occupies the slope of a 
steep hill overlooking the strait which separates 
the mainland from Hoy Island, and consists 
chiefly of a sort of street, full of corners, and 
built at every conceivable angle. This curious 
cart-barrow way is a mile long, running 
parallel with the sea, and so tortuous as to 
admit of only a few yards being seen from any 
point. For the most part it is innocent of any 
distinction between road and footway. From 
this road many steep lanes ascend to the more 
open grounds above. Many small piers jut 
out into the sea, probably belonging to private 
houses. Thus these fortunate people can row 
their boats almost to their doors and step out 
within a few feet of the threshold. There is 
no need for concern about breakfast. A Hne 
cast out of the window will soon bring in a 
plentiful supply of sillocks. The sea washes 
away all refuse, and the seagulls do good 
service as scavengers for harbour, shore, and 
street. All the houses are, like Euclid's tri- 
angles, ** similar and similarly situated." One 



48 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

wonders how a resident finds his home. It is, 
indeed, a unique, primitive place. Among its 
most interesting curiosities is the asterolepis 
found by Hugh Miller near the Black Crag. 

On Friday, ist July, 1859, the anchors of the 
Prince of Wales (Captain Herd) were hauled 
aboard amid a chorus of sailors' *' shanties," 
which seemed to give strength as well as im- 
pulse to the task of working rope and block. 
As we issued from the harbour before a gentle 
eastern breeze, we had Breckness on our star- 
board side, and on our port the cliffs of Hoy, 
rising to their imposing stature of a thousand 
feet. The Kame Rock, showing an imagined 
profile of Sir Walter Scott, is a little short of 
the extreme point of Hoy Head. Then comes 
in sight the '' Old Man of Hoy," a rocky stack 
rising abruptly out of the sea, five hundred feet 
in height, and resembling a bishop with hat on. 
That point passed, we shot fairly into the dark 
blue waters of the North Atlantic Ocean. 

" It is the mirror of the stars, where all 
Their hosts within the concave firmament, 
Gay marching to the music of the spheres, 
Can see themselves at once." 

It was one of those enchanting evenings 
that can only be seen in these somewhat high 
latitudes. We had the tide with us, which 



FROM LEWIS TO HUDSON BAY. 49 

runs here at a furious rate from South Walls, 
Flotta, Hoy, and Longridge, and through Gutter 
Sound. Our pilot had returned to his boat, 
and amid a tremendous chorus of human 
voices, shouting and cheering, and much waving 
of hats and handkerchiefs, his rope was cast 
off, and we entered upon our period of isolation, 
with only the eternal stars in the blue vault of 
heaven for our companions and our guides. 

^y 9-30 P-M. the low sun had spread a 
purple glow on the water, with golden light 
on the barrels of the long heaving swells, and 
blue and green and mackerel shades in the 
hollows. The shadows of the masts and 
rigging and the never-to-be-furled sails rolled 
to and fro on the deck in the moonlight. Now 
and again a gentle, breathing swell, some three 
furlongs from trough to barrel, would quietly 
shoulder up a string of variously painted dories. 
They hung for an instant a wonderful fringe 
against the skyline, and the men pointed and 
hailed. Next moment the open mouths, 
waving arms, and bare chests disappeared, 
while another swell came up, showing an 
entirely new set of characters, for all the 
world like paper figures in a toy theatre. 

There seemed no reason for retiring below, 
for there was no night. The sun's course was 

S.K. E 



so THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

clearly traceable from its disappearance below 
the horizon until its reappearance. But the 
shore was already far behind us, and as I 
turned my eyes upon its distant outline the 
blue hills quivered a moment on the horizon 
as if to bid us all a long farewell, and then 
sank into the bosom of the ocean. I turned, 
and went hastily to my berth. 

In the morning the rocky stack of the island 
of Rona stood out of the glittering sea on 
our starboard quarter like a giant on stilts. 
Many a tale of this island I had drunk in 
almost with my mother's milk. Old Angus 
Gunn was full of its traditions. The sight of 
it brought back keen recollections of home, 
and when I turned and saw the Butt of Lewis 
rising far off out of the sea, a speck no bigger 
than a man's hand, I was forced once more to 
hurry out of sight. I was young, the youngest 
on board except the cabin boy and a baby 
passenger, and at sixteen a lad is young enough 
for tears and old enough to seek to hide them. 

Later in the day, finding on board a young 
man from the extreme west of Lewis, I made 
a secret agreement with him that at dinner- 
time we should climb the mast to see if we 
could catch sight of the western point, Gallan 
Uig. We mounted, but only to be followed 



FROM LEWIS TO HUDSON BAY. 51 

by two sailors to tie us to the rigging till the 
grog penalty should be paid. Observing this, 
I seized a rope which stretched from the 
crosstrees to the deck, and throwing my legs 
round it I was soon on deck, while my com- 
panion was being fastened in mid-air. The 
incident afforded me an object lesson in the 
value of that quickness in emergency which 
has since stood me in good stead. Meanwhile, 
however, the deep rents and wounds in the 
palms of both my hands provided the ship's 
doctor with his first bit of professional practice 
for the voyage. 

In addition to nearly fifty Company's servants, 
who were engaged for five years to serve at 
various points in its vast territory, there were 
three private passengers and a baby aboard. 
Of these three, two were natives of the Terri- 
tory, one full blooded the other half bred, who 
had undergone a course of training, the one in 
divinity, the other in what appeared to be some 
form of occult alchemy. The other was an 
Orcadian lady, mother of the baby already 
mentioned. I wish I could write of our Helen 
as Homer did of her of Troy, yet ours was not 
Helen but Penelope, for she refused to accept 
the homage the whole ship was waiting to ofter 
her. Very rarely would she appear on deck, 

E z 



52 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

and when she did so she was attired in a plain 
but neat and becoming dress, and wore a heavy 
veil, as if she had just emerged from a Turkish 
harem. Yet so magical is the effect of a lady 
upon the male sex, that though hundreds of 
miles from shore, the mere sight of this one at 
once produced a perceptible change for the 
better in the looks of the whole ship's crew. 

Two watches were kept on board, the 
Captain's and Mate's, according to cUvStom. 
Each lasted four hours. The hours from 4 to 
8 P.M. were divided into two dog watches, 
arranged so as to change the hours and allow 
the men to sleep to-day during the hours that 
they were on duty yesterday, and vice versa. 
When the sun was seen and on our meridian, 
the captain and mate mounted the rigging with 
sextant and quadrant to take our bearings. A 
glance at the chronometers, faultlessly adjusted 
to Greenwich time, and a simple arithmetical 
calculation, were sufficient to discover within a 
mile our distance west and north from London. 

Long after solan geese and gulls were left 
behind we were followed by two fulmar petrels 
{Procellaria Glacialias) . Restlessly they followed 
us, now poised on the crest of a billow, now 
lost in its trough ; eating not, sleeping not, 
pausing not, but journeying perpetually over 



FROM LEWIS TO HUDSON BAY. 53 

the waste of waters like homeless spirits lost 
in the glooms of eternity. 

There is no more familiar and yet no more 
astonishing experience for the voyager upon 
the high seas than to study the new worlds, 
which in a few hours are created by a simple 
change of atmosphere. A storm is at hand, 
and Nature frowns at us from every side. She 
chills us with piercing winds, drenches us with 
pitiless rain and spray, threatens us from above 
with boding storm-clouds, glooms at us from 
black depths beneath. The storm which met 
our vessel was one of those which cannot easily 
be foreseen. It was preceded by a steady and 
persistent fall of the barometer, not by a sudden 
and alarming change. When it came, it came 
in full force. The scene made an ineffaceable 
impression on me — the mountainous sea, the 
high wind, the angry surge, the chaos and 
turmoil of whirling waters. The good barque 
shivered as each wave struck her, like an animal 
in the throes of death. Our horizon was but a 
ridge of foam-topped walls of water, raging 
tumultuously in a series of cataracts. When 
the ship dipped her bows she shipped tons of 
water, that came surging aft like the river Dell 
in spate. The heavens, the ship, and the ocean 
seemed mingled in a turmoil of war. 



54 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

Yet through it all it was impossible to help 
beingtickled at the ludicrous plight of the nervous 
and unseasoned recruits as they cautiously crept 
along the deck like timid skaters making their 
first attempt to keep a footing on smooth ice. 
On the whole, those who had to attend to the 
galley w^hile the ship was tossing, and all the 
pots and pans were rolling anywhere and every- 
where, into the fire and over the floor, had the 
worst of it. They might exclaim, with the 
Irishman writing to his friends at home, ** I 
am writing this, stirring the soup with the one 
hand, putting on coals with the other, and 
holding on to a rope with my teeth." 

For my own part, to crown all, I was suffering 
from that malady which no physician can cure, 
but which a sympathetic Irish sailor told me 
need not trouble me at all if I would simply 
" forget about it " ! The sailors were enveloped 
in foul-weather gear, and kept on their oilskins 
and sou' -westers for thirty hours, yet I venture 
to say their discomfort was as nothing compared 
with mine. 

At last, after two days of indescribable gloom, 
the atmospheric pressure was left behind, and 
once more we saw the heavens. The new glory 
of the air, of the sunlight, of the silver-shining 
sea, and of the sweet, blue sky, lifted us at a bound 



FROM LEWIS TO HUDSON BAY. 55 

from despair to rapture. The pessimist of 
yesterday was the optimist of this glorious 
morning. And, after all, it was only an affair 
of the atmosphere. Truly the whole art of 
existence might be said to lie in getting the 
right light upon things. 

But now we were in the regions of icebergs. 
We were off Cape Farewell, Greenland, and 
from day to day sighted white, mountainous 
stacks, or others island-like, sailing slowly 
southward, drawn by the suction of the Gulf 
Stream into mid Atlantic, to become water 
again after an eternity of ice-reign. Some we 
saw towering hundreds of feet above water, 
and our veteran captain assured us that for 
every inch above there were fourteen below. 
Yet it was their age that most impressed me. 
The Pyramids of Eg}^pt, beneath whose shadow 
fifty centuries have passed away, are children 
of a day beside these ice-bound pyramids of 
nature. When Moses was the servant of 
Pharaoh these mighty monuments were there, 
the relics of a hoary past, of another Egypt 
long since dead and forgotten. But for untold 
ages before their first stone was placed these 
frozen mountains lay huge and silent in their 
far-off unvisited solitudes. 

On Monday, ist August, a black speck 



56 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

appeared on the horizon, and the land of 
Columbus gradually raised itself out of the 
sea. It is hardly possible that Roderigo de 
Friand's cry of '* Land looms up ahead ! " 
could have caused more excitement in that 
crew three hundred and sixty-seven years 
before than the first sight of the barren and 
inhospitable island of Resolution now caused 
among us. A party of shipwrecked sailors on 
a raft could not have been more eager. Late 
in the day, after an exchange of courtesies with 
an ice floe, which gave the crew eight hours' hard 
pumping, the Prince of Wales entered Hudson's 
Straits, and found herself in the midst of an 
ice pack, which compelled her to proceed with 
more discretion and circumspection than had 
been necessary during the first three weeks of 
her voyage. Around us, as far as the eye 
could see, stretched fields of ice. Small lakes 
lay upon the floe of the purest and freshest water 
that ever man drank, and out of these the 
ship's tanks were refilled. I certainly found in 
the water tiny cray fishes and various insects 
moving about visibly enough, but there was no 
plant life, only swarms of animalculae, chiefly 
infurosia and flagellata. 

There we remained fixed in a frozen mono- 
tony. On the port bow the American coast, 



FROM LEWIS TO HUDSON BAY. 57 

Labrador, and Cape Chudleigh ; on the star- 
board quarter, Cape Best, Resolution Island, 
Baffin Land, and the great Meta Incognita 
stretching northward towards the Pole. Round 
us lay masses of ice lying flat, standing on 
edge, piled upon each other in every imagin- 
able position. On 15th August, my seventeenth 
birthday, I committed my second act of insub- 
ordination, tempted by these unfamiliar, yet 
alluring, surroundings. Accompanied by another 
lad, I stole overboard at dinner-time, resolved 
to reach the open sea. When we had got some 
distance from the ship we could not repress 
our exclamations at the grandeur of the scene. 
It astonished and amazed me beyond expres- 
sion. No very fantastic imagination is needed 
to see spirits there at noonday. Yet it seems 
a perpetual image of death, so calm, so grand, 
as to compose the mind rather than to terrify 
it. Not a precipice, not a standing cHff of ice, 
but seems to reveal the finger of God, the 
Creator. These are scenes so beautiful and 
sublime that they might well awe an atheist 
into belief without other argument. I said to 
myself that the Eskimo who first chose to settle 
here was a man of no common genius, and that 
I, had I had the choice, would have been one 
of his first disciples. 



58 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

After wandering over hummocky ice till the 
ship's masts had dwindled to the size of walk- 
ing sticks, the * ' sublime and beautiful ' ' suddenly 
made a rather untimely and unwelcome appear- 
ance in the form of a tremendous Polar bear 
making straight for us. My companion crept 
under a piece of ice for comfort and shelter. 
I took off my cloth jacket and a red comforter, 
which I had wound about my neck, and, waving 
these over my head, ran as fast as I could to 
meet the Arctic king. He immediately retreated, 
plunged into open water, and swam across a 
broad water lane to the ice floe beyond. We 
took to our heels, and reached the ship safely, 
only to be subjected to a kind of court-martial 
for desertion. 

Every day our captain looked eagerly along 
the northern horizon on the chance of seeing 
traces of the Fox , which had sailed from Aberdeen 
two years before, under Captain McClintock, to 
search for Sir John Franklin and his crew, and of 
which nothing had since been heard. Captain 
Herd was also on the lookout for the chartered 
barque Kitty, which had left London for Hudson 
Bay on the 21st June. One day he fancied 
he saw smoke rising from a point approach- 
ing Frobisher Bay, but finding that his cannon 
shots remained unanswered, he wisely gave it up. 



FROM LEWIS TO HUDSON BAY. 59 

Again, a change of atmosphere had altered 
the whole face of the world. Under the new 
conditions the view from the "crow's nest" 
was indeed desolation itself. As far as the 
eye could reach the earth stretched out like a 
monstrous stiffened corpse. The land lay petri- 
fied and black as night under the murky fog. 
The only break in the grim monotony was 
afforded by a few scattered reddish mounds of 
what looked like slag, some ugly brown hills of 
burnt earth with sporadic snowdrifts scattered 
here and there in hollows and clefts. The 
barren dreary hills lay lonely, swathed in ugly 
robes of black mist, their lower slopes cold and 
bare above the sea-line, defying for ever the 
growth of vegetation. An oppressive silence 
weighed upon the scene. Nowhere did there 
appear to be a single vestige of life. 

But it was not so, for suddenly along these 
dreary shores were seen signs of human pre- 
sence. " Venerable to me is the hand, crooked, 
coarse — wherein, notwithstanding, lies a cun- 
ning virtue, indefeasibly royal as of the sceptre 
of this planet. Venerable, too, is their rugged 
face, all weather-tanned, besoiled, with its rude 
intelligence ; for it is the face of a man living 
manlike," says Carlyle. Out of the unspeak- 
able desolation men came to us. Dwarfed in 



6o THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

size, dark olive in colour, oily in appearance, 
here they live out their short nightless summer 
and long sunless winter in an isolation not 
always splendid. Yet they thrive, in their own 
way, under (significant fact !) the protection of 
no government but that of a kind Creator, and 
are as happy — ay, most likely happier than 
if trained in the wisdom of Aristotle or the 
world-conquering art of Alexander. 

After a preliminary skirmish, paddling round 
the ship, their eyes rolling in frantic delight, 
this remnant of a prehistoric race sat at ease 
in the open hole in their kayaks. Each carried 
a harpoon line coiled on a tripod in front of 
him, a long spear on one side, and a dark skin 
bag inflated as a buoy in the narrow stern at 
his back. Their costume was, in its way, 
picturesque. Their long coarse black hair 
hung loose over their seal-skin jackets, which 
in turn overlapped their shaggy bear-skin 
breeches, and these again their seal-skin boots. 
Some of them were adorned with a tolerable 
sprinkling of beard and moustache. One, a 
chief, or head-man apparently, essayed to 
mount the ship's rigging, but his nerve failed, 
and, with heavy drops of oily sweat breaking 
on his brow, he returned to deck, almost para- 
lysed and in a fainting fit. Their language 



PROMT LEWIS TO HUDSON BAY. 6i 

was altogether unintelligibly ugly, far beyond 
the understanding of any of us, whether Gordon 
from Lochinvar, London cockney, or High- 
lander from the Isles. Talk of pandemonium, 
or a certain place let loose ! These are but 
pale figures with which to describe the sounds, 
and, as one powerful hoarse voice continued 
the discourse, like a dog yelping in the last 
stages of hydrophobia, many of us gave way to 
shrieks of laughter. 

It is a difficult matter to say what ought to 
be done with these poor creatures. It seems 
evident that they must remain in perpetual 
isolation. A natural code of ethics and certain 
traditional rules of conduct to which they con- 
form from one generation to another they no 
doubt possess, but they have no teacher and 
no religion ; and as they paddled away I was 
filled with pity and regret for their uncouth, 
half-savage ignorance. 

Three weary weeks we passed imprisoned in 
the ice. This is inevitable in such a strait, the 
passage being not only narrow but crooked 
and embarrassed with islands, though the only 
outlet from the largest inland sea in the world. 
At the cost, however, of a severe strain on both 
ship and hands, we made our way, after in- 
describable manoeuvres, into the Bay. Our 



62 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

only other adventure was a severe gale on the 
27th, which brought with it from the north an 
immense field of ice floe, in which our good 
ship laboured heavily for fifteen hours, and 
which nearly carried two of her boats away. 

We were now nearing Fort York, and the 
time had come to part from our Venus. Her 
husband was on board the little coasting 
schooner which we now saw approaching us 
from far out in the Bay. She was as charming 
and beautiful a creature as ever graced a fairy 
tale, and made a complete conquest of us all 
by her modesty, sweetness, and beauty. Not 
one of us but would have fought for her as the 
Trojans for Helen. We lost her, but honour- 
ably, delivering her to none other but the right 
man. And so bidding her farewell, we turned 
to the task of our own landing. 

After manoeuvring for many hours between 
red and black buoys, placed for our guidance 
by the happy man in whose care we left our 
Venus, we finally cast anchor in the '' five- 
fathom hole," which forms the London Docks 
of Hudson's Bay. And soon the inevitable 
partings had to be faced, among a number of 
people so closely associated for a time, and 
probably never to meet again on earth. As I 
turned away to descend into the boat below 



FROM LEWIS TO HUDSON BAY. 63 

I realised, as never before, the meaning and the 
beauty of the familiar words : ''And may the 
love of God that passeth all understanding 
keep your hearts and minds, through Jesus 
Christ." 

Thus, with a blessing in my heart and fare- 
wells on my lips, I turned with thrilling nerves 
for the first sight of my adopted land, which, 
truly, appears, on the horizon, low, swampy, 
and inhospitable, to prove something of an 
El Dorado for the new recruits, who wdll soon 
be scattered, broadcast, over its vast surface, 
to spy out its outward worth, like Caleb and 
Joshua of old. But ! 



CHAPTER V. 

FORT YORK IN 1859. 

Writers on uncivilised countries are strongly 
tempted to write in a sensational and highly 
coloured style. I feel the temptation, but fling 
it from me at the outset, being resolved to con- 
fine myself to naked truths, though they should 
consume me. So to my tale. 

Infant Babylon on the Euphrates, infant 
Nineveh on the Tigris, infant Rome on the 
Tiber, infant London on the Thames, and 
infant Fort York on the Hayes River ! All 
have their beginning. Some have had their 
ending. I do not mean to imply a prophecy 
that Fort York shall yet rule the world. Yet 
the smallness of its beginning would not prevent 
even that. There was no pomp or ceremony 
to celebrate our arrival. No pliant burgo- 
master, with golden keys on velvet cushion, 
came forth to welcome us ; no white-clad 
virgins sang in chorus as we filed into this 
square wood-built fort. We were greeted only 
by a host of contemptible husky dogs, growling, 



FORT YORK IN 1859. 65 

snarling, and yelping in breathless and angry 
protest. 

How one's eyes are astonished and delighted 
with novelty when first one touches a foreign 
soil ! The ugly faces of the Indians, redeemed 
by lustrous eyes ; the children, gaily bedizened 
in many colours ; the old witch-like women, with 
bronzed, shrivelled parchment for skin, carrying 
their children strapped to their backs, were 
curious and interesting sights to me. The 
young men and women were in gaudy array, 
the former with beaded fire-bags, gay scarlet 
sashes, leggings girt below the knees with 
beaded garters to match, and moccasins elabo- 
rately embroidered ; the latter in short coloured 
skirts, revealing embroidered leggings with 
moccasins of white cariboo skin, beautifully 
worked with flower patterns in beads, silk 
thread, moosehair, and porcupine quills dyed in 
many colours. All these things told me I was 
far from Ness. 

Yet I felt at home in it, for it was but the 
realisation of my early dreams. The descrip- 
tions of these very things had carried me to 
fairyland. But at the best I had scarcely 
expected that the dreams were to come so 
entirely true. I was full of hope and earnest 
purpose, resolved to be diligent in business, 

S.K. F 



66 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

and to rise, if will and resolution could bring 
it about, to a much higher position in the 
Company's service. 

The first difficulty was the languages. As 
the reader knows by this time, I had no alma 
mater to feed me with the bread of knowledge 
in my youth. Perhaps it was as well. I think 
sometimes there are, after all, too many roads 
to learning, too many devices to save the 
learner's pains, too many aids to indolence. 
Why, are there not divines who seriously urge 
that some of the difficulties in St. Paul's 
Epistles are deliberately introduced to try the 
faith of those who should come after — nuts for 
the future to try its teeth on ? Difficulties, I 
had already decided, should never deter me. 
Accordingly on 3rd September, 1859, I re- 
corded a resolution to have learned within a 
year from that date the various Indian lan- 
guages in use in my adopted country. A good 
resolution, than which nothing is better except 
a good will to maintain it. 

The old fort, three miles off, has remained 
in ruins ever since it was captured and destroyed 
by the French admiral La Perouse in 1782. 
The new fort, or main factory building, was in 
the form of a square, with a courtyard in the 
centre. In the middle there stood a very high 



FORT YORK IN 1859. 67 

*' look-out," bearing in huge letters the initials 
'' H. B. C."— '' Here Before Christ," as we used 
to interpret them. The front centre of the build- 
ing was three storeys high, the other portion 
two storeys. On one side ran a long summer- 
house, which was used to accommodate the 
officers from the inland posts when they paid 
their annual visits to bring up furs and take 
back goods. All round the square there were 
store-rooms, meat -houses, shops, trading- 
houses, provision stores, coopers', tinsmiths', 
and blacksmiths' shops, and the doctor's, 
clergyman's, and other houses. In front of 
the factory buildings was the only bit of arable 
ground on the whole coast-line. It was called 
** The Gardens," and was divided by two main 
walks leading from the esplanade to the river- 
bank. Potatoes and turnips were the principal 
produce of these gardens, and these grew fairly 
well considering the unkindly latitude. The 
whole fort was surrounded for protection by high 
palisades. Outside was the powder magazine, 
also enclosed within high palisades, and so was 
the graveyard hard by. Upon one gravestone 
I read the following inscription : '' Sacred to the 
memory of Wm. Sinclair, Esq., Chief Factor, 
Honble. Hudson's Bay Coy. Service, who 
died 2ist April, 1818, aged 52. ' Behold, Thou 

F 2 



68 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

hast made my days as an handbreadth, and 
my age as nothing before Thee. Verily every 
man at his best estate is altogether vanity.' " 
Two inscriptions I noticed written in Cree, 
and on that account they attracted a little 
attention, but beyond these there was nothing 
particularly interesting. 

The Church Missionary Society had an 
indefatigable agent working amongst the 
natives. A number of text-books were already 
printed in the Cree language. The same 
syllabic characters were used as in teaching 
Chippewayan, and the children were taught in 
Cree to read and write and apply the rudi- 
ments of arithmetic. The Indian village was 
half a mile from the fort, and contained about 
three hundred inhabitants, living some of 
them in log cabins, but most in pole-tents. 
The village was literally alive with children 
and dogs, which seemed to be engaged in a 
perpetual rivalry as to which should make most 
noise. When I paid my first visit the women 
were standing about chatting and talking to each 
other with great volubility, occasionally casting 
a glance at me, or at the row of infants behind 
them — a do^en or so standing bolt upright in 
their tightly laced cradles. Each wore a 
blanket, shawl-fashion, and had a coloured 



FORT YORK IN 1859. 69 

handkerchief on her head and embroidered 
moccasins on her feet. 

A curious object in the village was the large 
day oven, in which baking was done once a 
week for the whole of the inhabitants to- 
gether. The oven was heated, and each 
woman brought her own dough ready for 
firing. The forty or fifty pans were put in, 
and when the bread was ready, the squaws 
selected their respective loaves and carried 
them away rejoicing. The oven was built for 
them by the Company. The Company and 
the Indians were mutually helpful, and their 
labours complemented each other, though the 
latter had a smaller share of the "unearned 
increment." 

At the time of the year when I arrived, there 
were generally hundreds of inland Indians, mon- 
grels, and Metis at the fort, who^were engaged 
for the trip to work in the boats. They were 
rationed every morning at no small expense on 
salted geese and pemmican. The latter was very 
sustaining, and although it contained no salt, 
it was so prepared by the Indians of the plains 
as to keep good for generations. It consisted 
of sun-dried buffalo beef, pounded and put in 
a raw hide bag of buffalo vskin, with buffalo fat 
boiled and poured over the whole. 



70 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

These curiously mixed peoples, from the far- 
away plains of the Saskatchewan, English, 
Swan, Red, and Rainy Rivers, and Cumberland 
and Norway House districts, passed away the 
time in sleeping and eating and gambling, and 
in conjuring to their hearts' content. They 
seemed quite at home in the occult art, and 
were experts of no mean ability in its mysterious 
wiles. I remember the conjurer's being asked 
to give information regarding the safety of 
Captain L. McCHntock and his crew, already 
lost for two years. He undertook the task 
with the greatest air of confidence, and 
declared them to be safe, professing to -see 
them at that moment working their way out 
of the last ice floe on the way home. In the 
course of his interview with dark spirits far 
beyond our ken, he certainly made his small 
tent shake terrifically, and the deafening shrieks 
and shoutings that issued from it were enough 
to wake the dumb gods of the prophets of 
Baal. The gambler played his game openly, 
except for his hands, which were carefully 
hid under his blanket. But he too made 
a dreadful noise, toning it down gradually, 
however, till the sound vanished as if in the 
last convulsion of death. All the time he kept 
bowing like a Chinese mandarin, but in a stiff, 



FORT YORK IN 1859. 71 

unnatural fashion, suggestive of a galvanised 
mummy. 

The local medicine-man was of an inquiring 
disposition, ever striving to obtain such know- 
ledge of natural phenomena as might aid him 
in his occult labours. He was quite unin- 
structed, however, and had no knowledge ot 
minerals, and only a general acquaintance with 
the properties of medicinal herbs and certain 
roots and animal productions. Since Zadkiel 
(or was it Old Moore ?) hit the bull's-eye, thanks 
to the misapprehension of a subordinate, by 
predicting snow in harvest-time, any sufficiently 
audacious weather prophet has been tolerably 
sure of an attentive hearing. 

Our local great man, Mes-Kee, Ke, Way- 
nan, managed to unite with herb knowledge a 
faculty of observing weather signs, and so to 
foresee coming changes and win for himself 
the reputation of being able to command rain 
or sunshine. He had to invent and think out 
a character for the Manitos — the supernatural 
beings he believed in — so as to be able to 
inform his less gifted neighbours of their deeds 
in the dark world in which they dwelt. He 
maintained all ceremony, and when seeking to 
propitiate the spirits he was clothed in such 
elaborate paraphernalia as would enable him 



72 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

to meet with all grace the eyes of those spirits 
with whom he had to do. In any other gar- 
ment than that which he himself designed, his 
efforts to persuade them might be fruitless. 
His headgear was made from the varying 
abundance of the feathered tribes of the air ; 
his overall cloak was a variegated masterpiece, 
surpassing Joseph's coat of many colours ; his 
feet and legs were a mass of dyed quills of all 
the hues of the rainbow. So that, though he 
charged no fee, his personal well-being was 
amply secured by these and other gifts. It is 
only fair to say that, at least in one case, this 
" medicine-man " cured a case after the fort 
doctor had given up. A man had been down 
with scurvy, which had developed into rheu- 
matic gout. '* Life is life ; a life for a life," 
exclaimed the son of Nature, and promptly 
ordered the sick man to get a bullock, to shoot 
it through the head, and to have the inside at 
once removed. Then he placed his patient, 
naked as he was born, inside the animal, 
leaving out only his head, and kept him there 
till he was well-nigh dead. Having under- 
gone such a process of half-cooking, the man 
promptly recovered, and when I saw him en- 
joyed the best of health, and was never tired 
of repeating the unique experience. Whether 



FORT YORK IN 1859. 73 

this crude scientist regarded the causes of his 
successes (weather included) as personal or 
impersonal, I was unable to find out ; but the 
subject of his thoughts and speculations was 
the same as that of his brother medicine-men 
in Asia and Africa, and his methods not very 
unlike. 

These three outstanding men I have been 
able to sketch only very lightly. All this part 
of my life was very wonderful to me, and 
the recollection of it is vivid still. But to 
describe it as it impressed me then — I so young 
and ardent, my surroundings so new and 
strange — w^ould demand a pen of fire dipped 
in the dyes of the rainbow. 

The question suggests itself how and whence 
these nomad tribes reached and made their 
home in a land so uninviting. There are many 
points which showed a strong comparison with 
Jew and gipsy. Like them, they have been driven 
from their first home, and, like them, they have 
maintained even in dispersion, through a cer- 
tain proud reserve and isolation of character, 
if not by the special " blessing " of Providence, 
their individuality and separate existence as a 
race. Like them, they are accused of practising 
the " dark arts," of holding intercourse with the 
Evil One, of cannibalism or human sacrifice. 



74 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

There are advantages in this roaming life 
which at one time or another have attracted 
most of us. The open-air existence, the con- 
stant change of scene, the easy indolence, the 
delightful freedom from inhabited house duty 
and similar exactions of civilisation, seem more 
than enough to outweigh the disabilities of an 
Ishmaelism whose hand, potentially at least, 
is against every man's. This last characteristic 
was not noticeable in my Indian friends. They 
were neither fiery nor quarrelsome, perhaps 
by the influence and habit of the repressive 
North. 

The pioneer work in Arctic exploration has 
been done in great part by our own countrymen. 
In commercial enterprise Scotsmen have taken 
the lead. The prosperity of Hudson's Bay 
and its companies and territories is due to 
brave men from north of the Tweed. Scottish 
caution is generally sure-footed. It built up an 
East Indian empire, and for two hundred years, 
having obtained a charter from Charles II. in 
i66g, it began to build up this frozen dominion 
in the North, with Sir George Simpson at its 
head, and seven-eighths of its officers Scots- 
men. What a number of Scottish names can 
be found scattered broadcast over the country, 
from British Columbia and Alaska on the 



FORT YORK IN 1859. 75 

Pacific side to Labrador and Ungava on the 
Atlantic, and to the United States boundary 
on the south, a territory so vast that it could 
drown Europe in its fresh-water lakes — Ander- 
sons, Christies, Baillies, Barnstones, Colvilles, 
Campbells, Douglases, Finlaysons, Erasers, 
Grahames, Isbisters, Kennedys, Mathesons, 
McFarlanes, McKays, McDougalls, McGilH- 
vrays, McDonalds, McKenzies, Rosses, and 
Sinclairs ! The story of trading enterprise and 
discovery in the North-West reads like a muster- 
roll of the clans. As I took my humble place in 
the service to which I was bound that autumn 
of 1859, I told myself proudly that I belonged 
to the land of Bruce and Wallace, of Knox, of 
Burns, of Chalmers and Carlyle ; and though 
I might never see her again, I gloried in 
thinking that I, too, was her son. 



CHAPTER VI. 

FORT YORK TO THE RED RIVER OF THE NORTH. 

Not one of the new recruits had the smallest 
idea in what part of the vast territory his lot 
was to be cast. I waited patiently, finding 
enough to interest me in the enormous piles 
of goods that lay on the river-bank, ready for 
transference to the inland boats — sufficient 
witness to the commercial importance of Fort 
York, the brain and heart of the whole terri- 
tory. At last the die was cast, and my 
destination fixed, nine hundred miles away, 
southward happily, on the Red River. This 
was the most civilised part of the territory, 
and friends and foes alike pronounced me 
lucky. I myself was not specially enthusiastic, 
being conscious of a preference for savagery 
over civilisation, a preference supported by 
distinguished authority, since Rousseau held 
that the cultivation of the arts and sciences 
had not contributed to the purification of 
morals. What weighed most heavily on my 
mind was the long distance from the sea. 



FORT YORK TO THE RED RIVER. 77 

Born on the verge of the Atlantic, the son ot 
a race of sea-people, I had a strong love for 
the salt ocean, and as no time was fixed for 
my return, I felt that the Greek kalends might 
arrive, nay the next glacial period be upon us, 
before I again tasted its briny flavour. 

Be that as it might, however, I soon found 
myself in the stern of a boat, hoisting the lug 
sail before a strong and cold north-east wind 
and a stronger tide, running eight miles an 
hour into the thorax of the Hayes River. My 
crew were truly a promiscuous lot — Metis, 
mongrels, and Indians. They were seven in 
number, three great and four small. Two 
Metis and an Indian were of extraordinary 
size, sons of Anak, while the balance were 
mongrels of the tiniest stature possible. 
All alike seemed in a state of torpor, suffering 
from fatigue after heavy tippling. Resolved 
either to increase or decrease the symptoms, 
I handed over to them my whole allowance 
of grog for the nine hundred miles. Their 
appreciation was amusing in its volubility. 
Indian and English tongues were mingled 
indiscriminately in praise of the gift and the 
giver. 

Cape Tatnam was the last I saw of the 
sea coast. The boat sailed up river on the 



78 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

bosom of the tide, and when its force was no 
longer felt we put ashore for the night. As 
the tide turned and the sea returned to its 
bed, I had a sense of losing a friend. I said 
farewell to it sadly, and asked myself when I 
should see it again. My first night at the 
camp-fire under the canopy of heaven was 
truly a strange one, a mixture of hope and 
of fear, of joy and of doubt. But I had 
learned well the lessons of home, and God was 
my mainstay. My companions betook them- 
selves early and with enthusiasm to the grog 
gift. Nay, they *' broached the admiral " too, 
which made up fully two-thirds of our cargo, 
in their eagerness to replenish the virtues of 
my gift and keep up the bout. They fought 
each other like tigers, tearing their clothes to 
rags, and dragging handfuls of hair from thick- 
grown heads that never had known a comb. 
It goes without saying that they anathematised 
each other in a babel of tongues. Then their 
mood changed, and I could hear the half- 
muttering of the native *' Auld Lang Syne," 
with its rousing '^ wullywachts " and fraternal 
grasping of hands. By morning light it was 
all over, and our guide called out in a species 
of hawking voice, with power of sorts like the 
blast of Roderick Dhu's horn, " Win-ish-kaa ! 



FORT YORK TO THE RED RIVER. 79 

win-ish-kaa ! Ash a keeish ee-gavv " — '' Wake ! 
wake ! Already daylight." The conquest 
of one language by another is always an 
interesting study, and one in which I was 
to be absorbed henceforth. The difficulties 
promised to be great, chiefly that of distin- 
guishing what was really germane to the 
tongue I was studying and what foreign. But 
I could only persevere. Every passing breath 
is said to add something to the stability of a 
coral reef. Why should not it be so with me ? 
Every phrase overheard by chance might add 
something to my knowledge. 

After a hurried repast of half-baked bread 
and raw pemmican, four of the most motley 
specimens of humanity ever seen jumped 
ashore to tow us up stream. They wore leather 
straps around their shoulders, to which were 
attached five hundred feet of tracking line. The 
other end of the line was made fast to the fore- 
shoulder of our boat. Our craft was of five tons 
burden, and was heading a current of six miles 
an hour on the average, so that our mongrel 
friends' work was no sinecure. They walked by 
the water's edge, one after the other, with heads 
bent in an attitude suggestive of deep sorrow, 
with long necks stretched out gooselike and 
bent backs, thus putting forth every particle of 



8o THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA, 

strength that Nature had bestowed upon them. 
Indeed, to do them justice, they needed no 
urging, being every one more eager than another 
to finish the task and get back home again. 
Thus we proceeded up stream day by day, with 
no change in the programme, except here and 
there where the current got slack, and the 
amber water trickled drowsily over the exquisite 
pebbles. The physical aspect of the country 
improved as we advanced. Instead of the 
dwarf shrub brush growing, or trying to grow, 
on the low coast lands, we found good-sized 
trees of poplar, birch, and pine. The sun now 
set among the foHage of trees. In these high 
latitudes he appears to the careless eye to be 
still moving royal in the heavens as if in the 
summer solstice, although he is nearly on 
the equator. On the night of 12th September 
the harvest moon was full, although where I 
was there was no harvest to gather in. I fell 
asleep by its light. There was no dressing or 
undressing, nor had my bedroom any roof but 
the canopy of God's dwelling-place. After the 
sweet sound sleep of my age and race, I awoke 
to a scene of unearthly beauty. It was four 
o'clock. The great moon, in her splendid 
maturity, rode royally in the far west. Mercury 
sparkled, and Venus shone soft and clear. 



FORT YORK TO THE RED RIVER. 8i 

Jupiter blazed on the meridian, Mars and 
Saturn in attendance ; and remote Uranus 
stood in the constellation of the Bull. The 
whole camp lay in dead sleep. By-and-by red 
and white streaks began to spread themselves 
across the eastern sky, and soon I saw our 
good guide standing on the river bank, stretch- 
ing his neck not unlike our cockerel at home, 
and in another minute the strident voice was 
again shouting its hoarse '' Win-ish-kaa ! " to the 
camp. The streaks of light in the east grew 
brighter, heralding the rising of the sun, and 
the natives were already in harness. We were 
travelling just then through a deep rocky gorge, 
running due east and west, and the moon's soft 
light played in the depths with strange, fantastic 
effect. I shall always remember that morning, 
the golden sun coming up behind me, the 
silver moon going down in front, both so serene, 
so majestic, so far away, and between and 
beneath them four human mongrels in harness, 
holding on their course with the tenacity of 
grim death, hauling a five-ton cargo boat 
against a particularly strong and trying current. 
I had begun to understand my companions 
much better by this time, although our con- 
versation was carried on through an interpreter 
in broken Indian and sorely abused and badly 

S.K. G 



82 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

fractured English. I must admit that as yet 
two-thirds of my Indian vocabulary were 
exhausted in '' No " and '' Yes." 

The mosquitoes and their second cousins the 
sand flies were simply intolerable in their eager 
thirst for the white man's blood. When I lay 
down at night I fancied that the oblivion of 
sleep would deliver me from the torment of 
their designing songs and sharp stings. But 
no, they attacked me with a voracity that made 
me believe I was the first tit-bit that had 
come their way since the hour of their insect 
birth. The natives did not seem to mind the 
plague at all. Whether they, through custom, 
are less sensitive than we are, whether their 
blood is not so sweet, or whether the creatures 
have pity on their countrymen, I know not, 
but the fact remains, they are not so vicious 
by half when there are no white men about. 

Day by day I was more overcome by the 
mystery of our loneliness. We passed by no 
mansions, no castles, no ancient monasteries, 
no towns, no ruins. We were alone, alone. 

Speaking of this country, it has been said, 
'* The most travelled of those who behold the 
extent and variety of its scenic magnificence, 
and whose souls are open to such appeals of 
Nature, will readily admit that they have never 



FORT YORK TO THE RED RIVER. 83 

seen the like of it, and that nothing they ever 
saw impressed them so deeply. They will be 
struck first with the vastness and unknown 
character of the region traversed. Imagine six 
hundred thousand square miles of wilderness, 
of which probably less than a twentieth part 
has as yet been trodden by human beings. 
The merest specks of white and aboriginal 
settlements exist on the shores and river banks, 
aggregating a few thousands in population. 
Hundreds of miles of shore line are passed 
without discovering any sign of life but the 
waterfowl and the numerous bald-headed 
eagles perching on tree-tops. The contem- 
plation of the solemn solitude of this great 
primeval realm is truly awe-inspiring." 

I was constantly reminded of the hummocky 
ice-field in the straits, only on a larger scale, 
in the tumbled masses of rocks upon rocks. 
Much mineral wealth might be hidden there, 
but no science could ever develop any agri- 
cultural capability. 

From night to night the stars shone with 
greater and greater brilliancy. A blush of 
lovely light, in shape like an outspread fan, 
stretched upwards from the horizon, and made 
a pathway through the stars. That light 
borders the sun's path for millions of miles. 

G 2 



84 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

I watched in vain for it in the early part of 
the night, possibly because during the coming 
months the sun's track would be low down 
near the horizon. This beautiful northern 
sky, with its sparkling millions of stars, was 
to me the one great joy of my journey. I 
fancied them alive and looking at me with 
radiant glances, as if inviting me to join them 
in their unknown realms. 

Beneath these stars we passed now and again 
a lonely family, under birch-bark covered tent. 
With them, in a primitive way, was " the 
sacred mother of humanity." They were, 
indeed, sinless, uncontaminated by fraud and 
deceit, moving free and unconscious in the 
royalty of nature. Surely these souls that sail 
thus before a fair wind across the ocean of 
life must needs be happy. But my Scottish 
love of the '' abstract " is threatening me again. 
I leave the perilous precincts of ethnology, and 
return to my tale. 

My diary, kept a secret from all, now 
became a real difficulty. The spirit was will- 
ing, but the flesh was weak. On the day we 
entered the straits, when we were so severely 
bombarded by an ice-pack, an exceptionally 
vigorous bump threw me forcibly down on the 
deck, my hand under me. It got rather badly 



FORT YORK TO THE RED RIVER. 85 

hurt, and was now beginning to fester. The 
excruciating pain added considerably to the 
pessimism of my mood, full of fear for the 
future and longings after what was left behind. 
One day, while the usual midday meal was 
being prepared at the bottom of a high hill, I 
was told that from its top the waters ot 
Hudson's Bay could be seen clearly. The 
word was enough. Dinnerless and maimed, 
I set out to have a last look at the sea. The 
ascent was tedious, steep, and long, but I 
reached the summit at last, only, alas ! to be 
disappointed. Suddenly, however, I came 
upon something that takes me back to paleo- 
lithic man and the eras before the Deluge : 
running into the mossy rocky hill a long cave, 
out of which black smoke was eddying, but not 
a human face was to be seen. Probably the 
story was an Indian legend. Still the view 
was grand. Far as the eye could reach hills 
and valleys rose and fell in endless, irregular 
sequence. To see such an extent of land 
unbordered by the sea was a new experience 
to me — an islander. The descent was accom- 
plished with many slips and scrambles, many 
alarms and anxieties. I reached my starting- 
point with a well-developed appetite, to find 
neither dinner nor boat awaiting my return. 



86 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

I sat on a stone at the water's edge in wonder- 
ing, disconsolate amazement, ending at last in 
hopeless discouragement and tears. My stock 
of hot, wet grief seemed inexhaustible. Fear 
fastened upon me like a leech. I was in 
despair. How small I felt in this vast wilder- 
ness, alone. How longingly I thought of my 
motley crew of companions ; how I would 
have welcomed them now, formidable as they 
had hitherto appeared to me. It was begin- 
ning to snow, too. Cold and hunger were 
seizing on my shivering frame, no fire, no 
food, no night-wraps to keep life in for even 
twenty-four hours. I thought of my immortal 
countryman Alexander Selkirk, and found my 
case worse than his. He at least was in the 
tropics, not frozen in the cold regions of the 
Arctic. This was my third misadventure since 
I entered the service, and seemed likely to be 
the last — first the escapade on the mast, then 
the flight over the ice and adventure with the 
bear, and now the loss of my boat and, as 
appeared likely, death from cold and starva- 
tion. While these gloomy forebodings filled 
my mind, and my body shuddered with pain, I 
found it difficult to collect sufficient presence 
of mind to convsider the position practically. 
But as I turned I observed a board standing 



FORT YORK TO THE RED RIVER. 87 

upright. The side next the river was crossed 
and recrossed by black streaks of charcoal. 
This was done recently, and must surely mean 
something. But what ? Suddenly a boat glided 
into view, coming steadily up stream. It made 
straight for the isolated spot where I stood 
trembling. In a few moments all was well, and 
it was explained to me that it was a very usual 
thing on these river journeys to leave a man 
ashore to make an oar or mast, or for some 
similar purpose, trusting to his being picked up 
by the following boat, whose crew recognised 
the charcoal-marked board as a signal to stop. 

Soon after this we left the Hayes and Hill 
Rivers behind us and emerged into Knee Lake. 
Here at last the poor fellows had a rest, as the 
lug-sail was well filled by a fine north wind, 
which drove us through the water at a great rate. 
This lake lies on a plateau, moderately elevated 
above the sea, and around its shores are isolated 
hills and ridges of no great height. At night 
I slept on the ground upon a bed made of the 
tips of boughs of the balsam fir laid in regular 
order like slates on a roof, the stem ends 
sloping downwards — a springy and fragrant 
couch, which might soothe even a festering 
hand to sleep. 

Our journey now assumed a new phase. 



88 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

Our progress up stream was checked by falls 
and rapids, most of which consisted of a series 
of short chutes, having a descent of from 
fifteen to sixty feet, with intervals of smooth 
water between. The passage between these 
and the nearest bays of two neighbouring lakes 
was made by the *' portages," or trails, which 
have existed from time immemorial. The 
cargoes were carried on the backs of voyagetirs. 
Except the spirit puncheons, everything was in 
the form of handy packages, so that the transfer 
was quickly made. The ordinary portage 
load for a man was two hundred pounds, and 
it was held in place upon his back by means of 
a pack strap or sling, the loop of which was 
placed round the forehead. With such loads 
they ran at full speed from water to water, no 
matter what the distance. It amused me to 
see them each with his two hundred pounds on 
his back running like Tam o' Shanter's mare 
pursued by the devil. 

Here I had my first chance of examining the 
Indian canoe. Certainly the white man has 
invented nothing to equal it for the purpose for 
which it is made. It is light and, I have been 
told, durable. It is still constructed just as in 
the prehistoric days before the white man 
came. It is made of the rind of the canoe- 



FORT YORK TO THE RED RIVER. 89 

birch tree, which when mature is tough 
and lasting, and very much resembles tanned 
leather. The inner side is turned out to form 
the bottom, and the different sheets are sewn 
together by long split roots of the spruce, 
which are also used to sew the bark to the 
gunwale. All is Hned inside by long strips of 
cedar, split very thin, placed lengthwise, and 
held in position by eight semicircular ribs ot 
cedar set closely together, their ends being 
cleverly caught between the inner side of the 
bark and the gunwale. Seams are carefully 
made tight by the gum of any coniferous tree. 
A canoe is from ten to twenty feet long, and so 
equipped, with a flintlock gun and powder and 
shot, an Indian can traverse the continent from 
ocean to ocean without other aid. 

At last we arrived at the first of the inland 
posts, Oxford House. The lake of that name, 
upon which it stood, abounded in fish : white- 
fish, sturgeon, pike, pickerel, gold-eyes, ling- 
sucker, and chub. The last-named were called 
awaadoosie^ '' stone-carriers," by the Indians, 
from their habit of collecting stones and gravel, 
weighing from an ounce to over a pound, and 
depositing these in a heap at the bottom of a 
river as a suitable place for laying and hatching 
their eggs. The stones are of course much 



go THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

lighter under water, and the fish are thus able 
to carry them in their mouths in accordance 
with Nature's curious arrangement. Fur- 
bearing animals were abundant in the neigh- 
bourhood : the moose and cariboo deer, and 
also the black bear, beaver, musk-rat, por- 
cupine, lynx, wolverine, otter, skunk, fisher, 
marten, mink-fox, and wolf. Birds of passage 
were Hkewise numerous, many species of ducks, 
geese, swans, and cranes being vsummer visitors 
in countless numbers to these northern regions, 
and the natives laid in a large supply (their 
harvest home) for winter and spring consump- 
tion. With them hunting was, indeed, reduced 
to a fine art. Like Solomon of old, they might 
be said to speak the language of birds and 
beasts. The effect of their imitative cries was 
simply magical. I have seen flocks flying 
southward wheel round at the sound and light 
upon their heads only to be fired at. Nor did 
they learn by experience, but returned again 
and again when the cry was repeated, an easy 
prey. The native has many curious arts, 
mysterious to us, but useful to himself. Who 
else could build a campfire as he does ? He 
arranges it high in a semicircle, and when it is 
lighted there is heat enough not merely to keep 
one comfortable, but to roast an ox. 



FORT YORK TO THE RED RIVER. 91 

Beyond Oxford House our route layby rivers, 
reservoirs, and creeks in a bewildering series of 
ugly steep gradients and sharp curves. Out and 
in among the hills the road wound like a great 
snake. Soon we came to a wonderful specimen 
of Nature's engineering, the most magnificent bit 
of wild scenery I had as yet looked upon in my 
adopted country. The place was called '' Hell's 
Gate," and did, indeed, suggest demonic craft. 
I cannot speak of the waterfalls. The mere 
recollection of them silences me ; the sight of 
them appalled me. I saw in what I can only 
describe as a great glen between mountain 
ranges a group of hills and hillocks. Far 
away on one side a range of hills formed one 
rampart, and the highlands on the other side 
formed the other. Miles of distance separated 
the two. Between them other hills arose, 
some wooded, some rocky and precipitous, all 
picturesque enough to delight a painter's eye. 
In the deep centre of the glen was cut the 
perpendicular gorge. I looked over the edge 
into the foaming cauldron below with awe. I 
could mark the mad whirl of the waters and 
stand in the very vortex of its vapoury columns, 
half stupefied by its deafening roar. At its 
verge the waters were heaving and eddying and 
fretting as if reluctant to make the dreadful 



92 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

plunge, and up from beneath rushed the dense 
vapour. As I stood amazed a half-breed 
approached me and said ; " Boy, what are you 
looking at ? Don't you think this to be the 
last piece of the world that God created?'* 
^*No, friend," I said; ''I think it to be the 
first, for, truly, it is rough enough to be the 
work of an apprentice." He laughed himself 
into an ecstasy. 

We continued our way. The famous march 
over the Little St. Bernard was nothing to 
this. Hannibal and his hosts would scarcely 
have conquered it. To me it seemed the very 
abomination of desolation upon the earth. 

Streams, not one, but many, had to be tra- 
versed. Portages became legion, their names 
unpronounceable by human lips. Our voyagetirs 
were still with us, and we were surrounded by 
an atmosphere of supplications not altogether 
gloomy, because pierced by persistent rays of 
hope, but still foggy enough, for the natives, 
consumed by home-sickness, kept pleading and 
craving for admission to the upper country 
lakes. With all their strength they used to 
toil and struggle and persevere to attain this 
end and have their task finished before there 
was a risk of being *' frozen in," as often 
enough happened. Instinct I found to be 



FORT YORK TO THE RED RIVER. 93 

their chief guide and strongest trait. Argu- 
ments led nowhere in native affairs, but all 
were active and alert in fleeing from Kee-way- 
tin, the north wind. They had all the Arctic 
legends by heart. They could tell you where 
the great volcano blazed that would burn the 
whole earth quick, where there was an open 
sea of incongruous temperature, and where 
might be discovered the great race of giants, 
twenty feet high. They greatly feared this 
race, who dwelt in silence at the top of the 
earth, and whose breath was Kee-way-tin, the 
north wind. They had strange ideas lost in 
unintelligible metaphor, but they were mostly 
honest, inoffensive people, with many kindly 
and polite instincts that might put to shame 
many more civilised. 

Of the rest of our portages I shall say 
nothing. The only grudge I nurse against 
them is their association with a nightly and 
distressing rendering of Indian songs, word- 
less and tuneless, but waiHng continuously on 
five treble notes. I never knew whether it was 
a song of joy or of lamentation, but there is no 
chant, be it ever so dolorous, that could have 
so effectually expressed, as it seemed to me, 
the depths of misery. 

We entered the Echamowash, so called by 



94 



THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 



the natives from its still waters and smooth, 
canal-like course. Yet even there we were not 
free from troubles, barriers having been built 
across it by many a colony of beavers, seeking 
to protect their homes. These elicited many 
oaths from their irate countrymen. It seemed 
intolerable to have progress retarded by these 
pigmies, which, like our fairies at home, 
though with much more reality, slept all day 
and worked mischief all night. Beavers' 
houses and villages are the most wonderful 
contrivances. I know of no more marvellous 
example of instinct than they afford. They 
fell a tree as quickly as a man could do it, and 
cut it with their teeth into billets, which they 
carry under water and fix to the bottom of the 
river, plastering them down with mud till they 
dam the water up to a depth which will obviate 
the risk of freezing. They divide the house 
into rooms, and prepare hard by, at the bottom 
of the river, a supply of food exactly sufficient 
for the period that the river will be under ice 
and snow. Truly a wonderful race, on whose 
accomplishments I have no space here to dwell. 
We were now, after five hundred miles of the 
most w^onderful waterway in the world, on a 
level plateau, the first terrace of any noticeable 
elevation above the Bay. It offers little oppor- 



FORT YORK TO THE RED RIVER. 95 

tunity for cultivation, being not only rocky, 
broken, and uneven, but hampered with climatic 
disadvantages which can never be wholly ob- 
viated. These are not the consequence of 
high latitude, that being only from 54° 13' 
to 59° 3', but of its central and isolated 
position, far from the mellowing influences of 
the ocean. The Bay, itself scarcely ever free 
from ice, which floats in upon it continually 
by Fisher's Strait and Rowe's Welcome from 
Fox Channel, has little help to offer in soften- 
ing the atmosphere. The Labrador peninsula 
shuts it out from the beneficial influence of the 
Atlantic, and the Alaska Territory acts as a 
check to the balmy breezes of the Pacific, 
which might have softened the hearts of the 
stony hummocks. 

Taking as centre the important inland post 
which we had now reached, Norway House, on 
the north-east end of LakeWinnipeg,the northern 
headquarters of my Company and a spot almost 
exactly half-way between the Atlantic and 
Pacific Oceans, I should like to offer my younger 
readers some account of the different tribes 
that roam over this vast territory, east, west, 
north, and south. The aborigines of this 
region undoubtedly belong to the Northern 
Cree branch of the wide-spread Ojibway or 



96 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

Cree stock. This tribe, divided into twenty- 
five branches under as many different names, 
extended, at the time of which I write, from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific. On the west side 
of Hudson's Bay the Chippewayan tribe inter- 
vened, who also came in contact with the 
Eskimos of the Arctic. But all, except the 
last-named, were descendants of the original 
Cree stock, which was the largest of the Lenni- 
Lennappe family in North America, the Chippe- 
wayan, Floridean, and Iroquois being next. 
The Cree was also a plain Indian, and as such 
very superior to his brethren in the North, who 
were designated ''wood Crees," and who spread 
themselves from sea to sea in various tribes, 
speaking strange dialects, called collectively 
the Quesnes or Montagnais. Besides these 
there were the Yellow Knives, Dog Ribs, 
Slaveys, Hares, Cariboo-Eaters, and the 
Loucheux, on the Mackenzie River, with 
sharp features and almond-shaped black eyes, 
these the most intelligent of all, and possess- 
ing a more distinct and characteristic language. 
Missionaries had reached nearly all the tribes, 
using as centres my Company's various posts, 
which were scattered throughout the length 
and breadth of its limitless territories. Their 
eftbrts, happily, had been rewarded by at least 



FORT YORK TO THE RED RIVER. 97 

the outward acceptance of their doctrine by a 
very large number of the aborigines who came 
into the posts to trade. The followers of good 
John Wesley had penetrated thus far in their 
search for souls. He it was who, with inde- 
fatigable zeal, preached the gospel three years 
in America to native tribes, and who boldly 
told his bishop that henceforth the world was 
his parish. The Church Missionary Society, of 
which I have already spoken, had many missions 
in the land, and the Oblate Fathers, before 
either of these, had worked their way in quest of 
souls from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the far- 
off Rocky Mountains, and the Athabasca and 
Mackenzie Rivers. On the whole, it may be said 
that sixty per cent, of the converts were Roman 
Catholics, the other forty Protestants. The 
most tangible evidence of their work and in- 
fluence so far was the suppression of polygamy 
and incest. The Indians themselves had no 
form of defined worship — if they had any 
religion it was only one of fear. They were 
ever propitiating the evil spirits, the demons of 
their dreams, the imaginary enemies of the 
woods, rivers, and lakes. Evidence of this 
came before me on the coast, in the medicine- 
men, who burned old shoes, leggings, broken 
snow-shoes, which had been hung up as peace 

S.K. H 



98 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

sacrifices, in order to avert bad luck in hunting, 
or head winds in voyages. I never failed to 
note the predominant note of avarice — human 
nature all over — stronger even than the 
superstition, as was shown by the worth- 
less character of the offerings. By tradition 
they were incHned to an inferior species of 
totemism, although no religious ceremony was 
ever attached to its acceptance. Thus any 
animal or bird dreamed of was taken as the 
dreamer's token. These old superstitions and 
inborn notions of fatalism are long of dying. 
They were very willing — on receiving a trifle 
— to conform to the ceremonies of the new 
religion, but little true Christianity seemed to 
have been developed. Their change, as far as 
I could judge, was one of method rather than 
of heart, and, indeed, in this one is tempted to 
ask whether civilisation can cast a stone at 
them. But they had little relish for civilisa- 
tion, and if they were induced to take a step 
forward they were very ready to back out of it. 
Female children were killed at birth by some 
parents. Others allowed them to live simply 
to become beasts of burden. Old people were 
frequently strangled when no longer able to 
seek their own living, or left behind to starve 
when the family moved to another spot. 



FORT YORK TO THE RED RIVER. 99 

Nor was the custom extinct for men openly 
to exchange wives for longer or shorter periods. 
In consequence, the number of virtuous girls 
was small ; and wise was indeed that son who 
knew his father in this vale of unconven- 
tionality. Chastity was regarded as a virtue 
to be honoured in the breach rather than in 
the observance. Fidelity by no means seemed 
essential to the happiness of wedded life, and he 
was happiest who escaped the trap altogether. 
The dead, in many tribes, were still seen 
swinging in trees, where the cold winds of 
heaven rocked them in their eternal sleep ; 
others threw them into shallow graves, with 
gun, ammunition, tea and tobacco, for the 
mysterious journey, and there the voracious 
wolverine guarded them by day, to feed on 
them by night. A traditional notion of a future 
life they had, somewhat after this fashion : — 

Two men die, one honest, one unscrupulous. 
Each soul enters a canoe and sails into a large 
lake, full of islands where evergreen plants and 
delicious fruits grow. The former obtains a 
landing, and feeds on the fruit for ever and 
ever. The latter's canoe glides off, and is 
carried into a river of interminable course, full 
of falls and rapids over which the soul tumbles 
and tumbles to all eternity. 

.L.:fn H2 



100 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

Well, we are all idealists — and materialists. 
We live in an invisible world here, and con- 
struct for ourselves an imagined future of 
material and moral conditions fairer than 
mortal eye can see for our hereafter. How 
came we by this master faculty, possessed, as 
anthropological inquiry has shown, by the very 
lowest races on our planet ? Where, in the 
untracked waste of ages, lay the birthday, for 
lowest as for highest, of man's conscious soul ? 
Education has been tried among these native 
tribes, but as soon as childhood is past they 
relapse into their inherited ways. Take from 
them the tin-kettle, scalping-knife and flint- 
lock gun — their insignia of civilisation — and 
hand them again the birch-bark " rogan," 
moose-bone, beaver teeth, flint-stone knife and 
bow and arrow, and at once they are just where 
they were when first my Company brought 
these common trinkets of the civilised world 
to them. Native industries I found to be nil^ 
and the climate made soil cultivation im- 
possible. Sentiment they had none, except a 
sense of soporific bliss induced by much gorging 
of pemmican. There were in their language 
no words to express maternal affection ; none 
to convey the tender solicitude of courtship ; 
there was no term of ordinary politeness, except 



FORT YORK TO THE RED RIVER. loi 

in the Loucheux tongue, where it was possible 
to express thanks. By gifts of shoes, however, 
an indication of tender thought was conveyed, 
a sentiment no doubt relative. The men 
married because they must have some one to 
make shoes for them ; the girls, because, poor 
souls, they had no say in the matter — and, 
because, after all, it seemed as well to be the 
slave of one man as the drudge of a family. 
The greatest blessing that could befall them 
was that they should die young. These 
are not my own statements, though I closely 
observed the life and habits of the Indians I 
came among, but information which I derived 
from an intelligent native, and which of course 
applies only to his own country. 

These, with Scotch, EngHsh, Irish, French, 
Germans, and Chinese — planted further south 
on British territory — form a medley fantastic 
and incongruous when huddled in a paragraph, 
but which, when "strung out" along a base 
line that runs from rise to set of sun, from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific, from Newfoundland to 
Vancouver, resolves its elements readily and 
auspiciously to the man who has eyes to see 
and ears to hear, and the heart to understand. 

I was now on the Nelson River, which carries 
down to the Bay all the surplus waters of Lake 



102 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

Winnipeg — an area of 10,000 to 13,000 square 
miles — and drains a country larger than Europe. 
We hoisted our lug-sails while native clerks 
diligently — or idly — paced the wood platform, 
consuming time and food, and, sailing through 
Play Green Lake, by the Old Fort, Montreal 
Point, Berens River, Dog's Head, Bull's Head, 
Grind Stone Point, Grassy Narrows and Sandy 
Bar, reached at last, on 13th October, 1859, 
the Mecca of my journey. Lower Fort Garry 
on the Red River of the North. Boyish and 
brave thoughts surged in my brain as I reached 
it — recollections, perhaps, of Julius Caesar and 
his Venij Vidi, Viciy and behind these, sweeter 
recollections lightening my fears. 

" Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom 
Lead Thou me on, 
The night is dark, and I am far from home, 
, Lead Thou me on." 



CHAPTER VII. 

HISTORY OF THE SETTLEMENT FIRST IMPRES- 
SIONS CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PEOPLE. 

Two years after the death and victory ot 
General Wolfe at Quebec in 1763, Canada 
was ceded by the French to the English under 
the Treaty of Paris, and the French-Canadians 
became, nominally at least. Englishmen. While 
Quebec was still being ruled from Paris, a 
brave Frenchman with a strong taste for rough 
travel and exploration penetrated as far as 
Lake Winnipeg and the Red River in 1732. 
This dauntless and persevering man followed 
up his first journey by another expedition which 
opened up to him a species of ranchman's 
paradise hitherto unknown to a white man — 
a level plain of one thousand miles by five 
hundred, watered by the two great Saskatche- 
wan rivers, and literally covered with wild 
cattle, quietly feeding on its nutritious grass. 
The glowing account which he brought back 
soon aroused the eager interest and enterprise of 
his wealthier countrymen, and the small trading 



i04 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

parties which had hitherto dealt in furs with 
the Indians on the east main coast resolved 
themselves into one great combination called 
the '' North-West Company of Montreal " in 
1783. This soon became a powerful organisa- 
tion, employing six thousand men and spreading 
its sphere of labour from Montreal to the 
Pacific. It was a formidable opponent to my 
Company, which had its headquarters in far- 
off London and depended on the difficult and 
uncertain Hudson's Straits for its communica- 
tion with the shores of the Bay, from which it 
had not yet penetrated inland more than a 
few miles. It knew nothing whatever of the 
Frenchman's great discovery of a herd that 
would supply all the cities of the world with 
fresh meat for generations, and which was 
wandering free on the prairie with no owner, no 
master, no caretaker, not even a ''herd loon." 
Great success and peace, however, seldom go 
hand in hand for any length of time. Discord 
arose in the North-West camp, resulting in 
the founding of another association called the 
" X. Y. Company." With this company, I 
may note by the way, came the first white 
bride from Lower Canada in 1806, Marie A. 
Lasimonier. When I went out she was still 
living at St. Boniface, the only baptised woman 



EARLY SETTLEMENT OF RED RIVER. 105 

in the entire country. Two days after her 
arrival she stood godmother to no fewer than 
one hundred French half-breed babies, and 
she is known to all the young folks as '' Ma 
Marraine " — *' my godmother." Her life 
story was indeed a stirring one, and included 
many a thrilling experience of fires, floods, 
and hair-breadth escapes from Indians, and 
famous adventures in a buffalo stampede, as 
well as experiences at the Battle of Seven 
Oaks. 

But to return — quarrels and jealousies vsoon 
broke out between the agents of these two 
rival companies, so lately one, and this state 
of things naturally afforded an opportunity to 
my Company to develop its own resources 
and extend its scope while the others were 
engaged in the fray. As usual, however, an 
excessive amount of Scotch caution was 
shown, and the forward steps were not made 
till early in 1800. In connection with 
this development it became necessary to have 
the Company's rights distinctly and legally 
defined. By a charter granted by Charles II. 
in i66g, the Company had been incorporated 
and endowed with certain rights and privileges. 
Its territory, therein described as Rupert's 
Land, consisted of the whole region drained 



io6 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

by rivers flowing into Hudson Bay. Such 
phraseology of course was merely the result of 
insufficient geographical knowledge, for much 
of the water that flows into the Bay comes 
from far into the heart of the northern United 
States. With a view to more precise delimita- 
tion, the charter was laid before such eminent 
lawyers as Erskine, Romilly, Scarlett, and 
Mansfield, and to test the validity of its owner- 
ship my Company in 1811 sold to the Earl 
of Selkirk a vast tract of land, including the 
ground upon which at this time stands the 
colony of the Red River Settlement. The 
price paid has never been disclosed. Probably 
it was nil — merely a test case. The Earl 
received full proprietary rights, and on him 
lay the heavy burden of extinguishing the 
red man's title to his country. A con- 
venient means of doing so lay to his 
hand. As it happened, just at this time a 
compulsory eviction of the poorer tenantry 
from the Highland estates of the Duchess of 
Sutherland was going on. Many of these 
cottar famiHes had lived — or vegetated — on 
the land from time immemorial, and the 
victims of what appeared an unnecessarily 
harsh mode of procedure were thus compelled 
to seek new homes. Lord Selkirk visited the 



EARLY SETTLEMENT OF RED RIVER. 107 

parish of Kildonan, where most of the evictions 
had taken place, and found a ready response 
to his suggestion of emigration. Within a 
year from that time a little colony, bearing 
the well-loved name of Kildonan, had estab- 
lished itself right in the heart of this great 
continent, far from the tyranny that had 
desolated the Kildonan at home. They had 
a hard time of it at first, and were well-nigh 
as long in the wilderness as the children of 
Israel. Not all at once did they enter upon 
the goodness of a land " flowing with milk 
and honey," nor did quails fall from heaven, 
ready roasted or otherwise, into the mouths of 
the multitude during these trying years — years 
of privations so terrible, borne in a manner so 
heroic that I dare not describe them lest I 
should be accused of — let us say — patriotism ! 
They had neither Moses nor Aaron with them 
through it all, "yet did they not take up the 
tabernacle of Moloch and the star of your God 
Remphar," but clung with the tenacity of their 
dour race to their own Presbyterian worship. 
And as a reward, it was not only Caleb and 
Joshua who saw the promised land, for when 
I visited them in 1859 I found them living in 
happiness and contentment in as well-ordered 
a parish as exists on this planet, ministered to 



io8 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

in spiritual things after their own hearts, with 
no rent, no taxes, no masters, no Duchesses, 
I had almost said no equals, since all were 
superiors, Calebs and Joshuas every one. Her 
Grace might well have marvelled, had she seen 
them, at the wonderful power and goodness of 
God in bringing to naught the works of earthly 
tyrants. For surely some special Providence 
watched over this little flock, preserving them 
alive through the Arctic cold, through the spite 
of rival traders, and the enmity of savage tribes. 
Two rival fur-trading companies were ready to 
pay the Indians any price for their complete 
extermination, and these unfortunately did not 
want much incentive, having taken a notion 
that these strangers were digging up the bones 
of their ancestors and raising crops nourished 
by their marrow. Disastrous floods and plagues 
of locusts drove them from point to point, but 
the Indians were their worst foes, and burned 
their huts to ashes over their heads, kilHng 
several of the settlers. The effect of all this 
was to force them further and further inland 
and southward, into a more fertile region, 
where their final settlement might be altogether 
prosperous. 

*' Indians are very amiable at a distance," 
said one of these settlers to me, "but I defy 



EARLY SETTLEMENT OF RED RIVER. 109 

the Apostles themselves to live near them in 
those days and be sure of a to-morrow." 

** If anybody could live near them surely it 
must have been yourselves," I said, adding, 
with some design of testing my worthy Caleb's 
general information : '' You must have felt like 
Lord Byron towards his mother" (a subject 
much in my mind just then). 

** Who was he, boy?" asked my friend, 
adding characteristically, ** What did he do ? " 

'* The relations between mother and son," 
I replied learnedly, " were of such a nature 
that he refused to go to the funeral of her that 
brought him into the world, and as soon as 
the coffin was outside the door he put on his 
gloves and began to fight." 

'' Not to fight, but to dance would have 
been our choice at their burials," he replied 
laconically. 

Yet notwithstanding these discouragements 
the colony was reinforced by another party of 
emigrants from the Sutherland estates, and a 
flying visit from their benefactor. Lord Selkirk, 
set things on a better footing and inaugurated 
a brighter time. He arranged a treaty of land 
with the Indians, by whom he was known as 
the " Silver Chief." For the consideration of 
two hundred pounds of tobacco a year the 



no THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

Indian was to cede to him the land from the 
river bank to '' the greatest distance at which 
a horse on the level prairie could be distinctly 
seen or daylight seen under his belly between 
his legs." This document was signed by five 
chiefs and five whites. I give the chiefs' 
names in full: — Pequis ; Onckidoat, Premier; 
Mache-Wheseab, Le Sonnant ; Kayajieske- 
binoa, L'Homme Noir ; Machkadewikonair, 
La Robe Noire. 

The first-named was the only one still sur- 
viving on my arrival. He then resided in the 
vicinity of the fort. He was a little man, now 
ninety-three years of age and totally blind, 
with a great voice and a gift of fluent speech, 
and was always easily persuaded to tell blood- 
curdling stories of the past. He had been 
a friend to the early colony, was quite the Sir 
Wilfrid Lawson of the district, being a great 
temperance advocate, though his own eldest 
son, the ** crown prince," was frozen to death 
while resting by the wayside after a little too 
much of the spirit distilled from molasses.* 

On igth June, 1816, a fatal skirmish took 
place at Seven Oaks between the rival 
companies, at which Semple, the Governor 

* A fuller account of this chief will be found in a letter of mine 
to the Canadian Gazette, which is printed in the Appendix (A). 



EARLY SETTLEMENT OF RED RIVER, iii 

of my Company, and twenty men were 
killed. Happily the various companies amal- 
gamated in 1821, and peace reigned. Whether 
Lord Selkirk's investment was merely a 
test sale or not, it is certainly the case 
that the Company repurchased the entire 
tract from his heirs for the round sum of 
;^'84,ooo. Sir George Simpson was appointed 
Governor of the coalition in 182 1, a post he 
filled with dignity and still retained in 1859. 
Lower Fort Garry, as I found it in 1859, 
certainly showed outward signs of future pros- 
perity, however misty its past history might 
have been. As I climbed to the top of the high 
river bank I found before me the Stone Fort, 
so called because its houses and loopholed 
wall were actually built of stone, and in this 
were unique in my Company's vast domain. 
Its buildings were shops and stores, with 
dwelling-houses for the Company's officers and 
servants. The whole fort was arranged in 
the form of a parallelogram surrounded by a 
wall twelve feet high. At each of the four 
corners was a bastion pierced for guns, like the 
turrets of the old Scottish embattled castles. 
As for the tiers of loopholes for musketry 
which pierced the walls, one wondered whether 
in case of a siege they would be of more 



112 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

advantage to assailants or defenders. There 
was one cannon in the fort which looked as 
old as Mons Meg at Edinburgh Castle, and 
might have been constructed at the same time 
by blacksmith Brawny McKinn. At that time 
the fort was the station at which, during the 
summer, boat brigades were outfitted for Fort 
York or other posts inland. Besides, a very 
large farm had been brought under cultivation 
in the immediate vicinity. The task of survey- 
ing this farm in acres was my test service for 
the Company. The experiment in agriculture 
proved most encouraging, and the harvest was 
everything that could be desired. The golden- 
tinted wheat, the plump round barley, the 
capital potatoes and turnips, soon showed the 
fertile capabilities of the Red River Valley. 
The residents in the fort formed a very 
lively community by themselves. They had 
regular hours for the dispatch of business, and 
afterwards, to beguile the tedium of the long 
sub-Arctic nights, they met together for a few 
hours' jollification, when old Scottish songs 
were sung in voices cracked and sharpened by 
the cold northern blasts. Materially assisted 
by French Cognac, Scotch whisky and Old 
Jamaica, the fun was kept up merrily till some 
slipped down and retired into a long and 



IMPRESSIONS— GENERAL REMARKS. 113 

peaceful slumber. At these carousals a pint of 
liquor per head was the allowance ; and I, a boy 
of seventeen, was included among the ''heads." 
Many a prayer I uttered, fighting against a 
temptation almost beyond human power to 
resist, so far from home, so young, and so 
alone. 

The fort stood in the middle of a two-mile 
reservation on the river bank. Outside of this 
limit many of the Company's retired servants 
had settled, each on the plot of land given him 
to work and live upon. Among them, too, 
there were boisterous evenings, for which the 
fort supplied the material without stint, though 
in the form of Demerara rum, a coarser 
beverage than it reserved for its own potations. 
Superannuation, as Lamb says, sits upon a 
man in a curious mixture of pleasant ease and 
irksome ennui. Human nature is terribly 
lazy — probably laziness is included in "original 
sin" — but never more so than when a man 
attempts agriculture after having lived like an 
Indian for forty or fifty years in the inhospit- 
able far North. My emporium was crowded 
every day with customers ready to purchase 
goods for cash, or to barter with their furs 
and agricultural produce. A record of all 
articles sold was entered in a sales book. 

S.K. I 



114 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

The currency was sterling, and consisted chiefly 
of promissory notes issued by my Company, 
redeemable by bills of exchange granted at 
sixty days' sight on the Governor and the 
Committee of the Company in London. These 
bore a high premium in the United States. 
The notes were of two denominations, one 
pound and five shilHngs. Besides the notes 
there was a good deal of English gold and 
silver in circulation. Even in that remote 
isolation unexpected evidences of civilisation 
occasionally met my eyes. At my landing 
upon the river bank I saw an old Englishman 
engaged in the proud avocation of collector 
of customs for the colony. In this exalted 
capacity he resided here during a certain 
portion of the year to watch the boats passing 
in and out and to make certain clearances of a 
primitive character, the total being ;/^2,ooo, of 
which my Company paid about ;^700. There 
was no better authority not only on the colony, 
but on the country, than this aged and respected 
collector of customs. To him everybody who 
wanted information had recourse. He told me 
he came to the countr}^ in 1813, and to the then 
very small and young Scotch colony in 1824 
after an abrupt dismissal from the service. He 
had married two native wives, and had a family 



IMPRESSIONS— GENERAL REMARKS. 115 

of twenty-two children. He was a vsort of 
universal factotum, and acted by turns as 
catechist, schoolmaster, precentor, farmer, 
clerk to the Council of Assiniboia, and 
occasionally when required as administerer of 
oaths, besides the business already referred to. 
The fort, notwithstanding its exceptionally 
solid limestone construction and its loopholed 
wall of warlike bastions, used as magazines 
for the storage of miscellaneous articles, was 
only a subordinate post. Upper Fort Garry, 
twenty miles up stream, near the confluence 
of the Assiniboine and Red Rivers, was the 
headquarters of the district. There lay the 
central point of the Northern Department, 
and there the Governor of the Territory 
resided. Our head officer there was a truly 
excellent man, who had been long in the ser- 
vice of the Company, and had been appointed 
Governor of Assiniboia the year before, in 
recognition of his character and worth. A 
cart trail old as the Pyramids of Egypt ran 
parallel with the river between these two 
forts. Travelling on horseback was the only 
mode of locomotion, except the famous " Red 
River cart," made wholly of wood, and the 
only home manufacture in the colony worthy 
of special notice. What the birch-bark canoe 

I 2 



ii6 THE FATHER OF ST, KILDA. 

was in the North, this marvellous native con- 
veyance was here. To construct it, only an axe, 
saw, drawknife, and screw auger were needed, 
and it carried one thousand pounds for as 
many miles. It is designed specially to traverse 
such enormous stretches of prairie as lie 
between the fort and the Rocky Mountains. 

On the whole, I soon made up my mind 
that the place was but a bit of the ruder 
civilisation thrown haphazard into the wilds. 
One half of the daily sales in my shop con- 
sisted of strong drink, and as colder weather 
and Christmas festivities drew near it 
amounted to about two-thirds. Probably to 
those of the Company's servants who had 
spent their lives in boats among the Indians 
in the far North this might seem a paradise 
regained. Well, whether paradise or no, the 
place certainly had many unique features. 
Its very isolation gave it a strong individuality, 
and it undoubtedly had a unique and peculiar 
organisation. 

Its population consisted of four principal 
elements : — first, the descendants of the early 
French traders, or voyageiirs^ who intermarried 
with the Indians and were the progenitors 
of the Metis or Bois-brules. These were 
settled on both banks of the river from 



IMPRESSIONS-GENERAL REMARKS. 



li- 



st. Boniface to the United States boundary, 
and, although quite without education, were 
well-mannered and kind and obliging to those 
who treated them as friends. The second 
element, akin to the first, was provided by 
the descendants of the Company's servants, 
mostly Scotsmen from Orkney and the other 
islands who also had married native wives. 
These were the English-speaking half-breeds, 
and lived on the lower banks of the Red and 
Assiniboine Rivers. They appeared to me 
more docile than the others, and hospitable 
to a fault. The third element was the Suther- 
land, Kildonan, and Selkirk colony, who lived 
in the parish of that name, and were in easy 
circumstances. The warm, hospitable instincts 
of their race still lingered in their Scottish 
bosoms. The fourth group were the Swampy 
Indians, who had somehow managed to make 
their way up from the Bay, and settle between 
Lower Fort Garry and Lake Winnipeg. They 
too were polite and kind in disposition. Three 
forms of religion were taught among them : 
Roman Catholic (Bishop Tache), EpiscopaHan 
(Bishop Anderson), and Presbyterian (Rev. 
John Black). Altogether they numbered 
about 13,000, of whom 5,500 were French 
half-breeds. 



ii8 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

' I might have included as a fifth element 
a native Indian population of two or three 
thousand. There were two distinct groups 
of these, the Ojibway and the Salteaux, ruled 
over by five chiefs. Both were of course 
nomadic, but the latter claimed and lived 
upon the lower part of the river and on Lake 
Winnipeg, while the former claimed the upper 
part of the river and the Red Lake, which 
belongs to the United States, and is separated 
from British territory only by the precise but 
intangible boundary line of a parallel of lati- 
tude 49. They used to meet in summer at our 
forts and bask in the sun for months. Their 
hunting grounds were situated on both terri- 
tories, and they were often involved in serious 
hostilities, and not only against each other. 
They constituted a nondescript and somewhat 
dangerous class of barbarians, who when 
pressed by the United States troops some- 
times took shelter among our Indians, and, 
as the population was unarmed, these gather- 
ings of wild, painted tribes caused not a little 
uneasiness and alarm. The sale of liquor 
to these Indians was prohibited under penal- 
ties of from £^ to ;jrio for each offence, but 
notwithstanding this their half-breed kinsmen 
generally procured all they wanted for them, 



IMPRESSIONS— GENERAL REMARKS. 119 

and the red man of the plains might often 
be seen lying drunk on the river bank. All 
attempts to stop such doings proved utterly 
futile ; and drunkenness and disorder, leading 
to many brawls and stabbing affrays, were 
all too common. 

To save us all, red and white alike, from 
ourselves, there were no less than ten Roman 
Catholic, eight Church of England, and four 
Presbyterian places of worship within the 
legally defined limits of the colony. 

Two Roman Catholic priests arrived in 
1818 as pioneers, followed in 1820 by the 
Rev. J. West, under whose doctrine the Scotch 
colony worshipped. In my time Drs. Tache 
and Anderson and the Rev. John Black 
were the clergymen in charge of the three 
denominations. 

Altogether the community offered a curious 
mixture of races and languages surely never 
equalled since the building of Babel and 
the confusion of tongues. There seemed but 
little prospect of this heterogeneous collec- 
tion of humanity, with its various traditions, 
instincts, temperaments, and beliefs, being- 
brought into line with Christianity. Some 
of the ceremonies observed by the natives 
seemed far enough away from both civilisation 



I20 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

and religion. One of these, the autump 
Dog Feast, was celebrated near the fort in 
an enclosure of twenty feet square, fenced in 
with branches of trees, two openings being 
left for entrance and exit. The ceremony 
occupied three or four days, during which 
the enclosures were crowded with savages, 
sitting side by side to enjoy the sweet canine 
tit-bit. In the centre were erected two upright 
poles with large stones at their bases, both 
coloured red with the blood of the dog sacri- 
fice. After the dead dogs had lain exposed 
on the stones a short time, the medicine-man 
began certain ceremonies, unfolding many 
curious prescriptions of his own from the 
** sacred bag" meantime to encourage his 
company, after which the dogs were cut up 
and served round, each choosing the portion 
he meant to devour. What would the irate 
vegetarian say to the man before me holding 
the tail of the repulsive sacrifice by both hands 
and savagely picking between the joints with 
a set of beautiful white teeth, licking the fat 
from his lips like honey from the honeycomb, 
another holding the head and placing the ear 
between his teeth, cutting it off by the skull, 
and the whole disappearing down the gulf of 
the savage's throat, while a third was busy 



IMPRESSIONS— GENERAL REMARKS. 121 

digging out the eyes and the brain, to eat 
along with the harder portion of the lean leg ? 
An uncouth and repulsive sight it was, and 
seemed to me a confused conglomeration of 
rites, destitute of any meaning or purpose, 
only possibly to supply a raison cfetre for 
conjurer and medicine-man. The special 
object of their office was the solemn act of 
communion with the dark spirits. To keep 
it from dying out they initiated novices into 
the mysteries of their fraternity by a fast often 
days' duration, and to keep the novice awake 
while he is dying by inches, the ''medicine 
drum " does daily service. Besides paying 
the price of initiation, the candidate must be 
a man known to the adepts as eligible, and espe- 
cially gifted with the power of secret-keeping. 
I have heard it said that Christian ex-conjurers 
have been known to express an opinion that 
they had possessed a certain power when 
pagans which they lost after their baptism. 
I give this for what it may be worth. The 
" medicine-man's " mixtures of roots were 
unmistakably highly poisonous, and possessed 
medicinal virtue. Permanent contortion of 
the features, the wholesale growth of unnatural 
hair over the whole surface of the body, the 
eruption of black blotches on the black skin, 



122 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

and, last, but not least, the causing of abortion 
in females, are among the effects of their drugs. 
They have even a theory of sex, and as males 
are always preferred to females, the latter 
being accounted burdensome, they diet the 
mothers with roots and what not. 

Many amusing anecdotes were current in the 
colony of errors made by some of its less edu- 
cated officers. One sent home for a cloak as a 
gift for his wife, which, however, appeared in 
the form of a timepiece. A ''clock" had been 
ordered. On another occasion the Governor, in 
disallowing an item, told his secretary to " put 
nothing," when, in lieu of the twenty articles 
desired, two hundred came with the ship. 

Our officials, when they wished to become 
Benedicts, often married Indian girls. Many, 
however, did not care to do so, and would 
petition the Company to select wives for them 
and send them out by the next boat. Their 
wishes were, as a rule, complied with, and the 
selection was nearly always satisfactory. Among 
the archives of the Company are found receipts 
from factors running thus: " Received ptv Lap- 
wing Jsluq Goody, as per invoice, in good trim " ; 
and "Received per Osprey Matilda Timpins, re- 
turned per Lapwing as not being in accordance 
with description contained in invoice." 



IMPRESSIONS— GENERAL REMARKS. 123 

One of the unfortunate characteristics of the 
settlers in the district was the custom of 
marrying at an excessively early age, with the 
result that unhappy unions and all their atten- 
dant evils were too common. Wilful young 
people were too often encouraged in their folly 
by their elders, and it seemed difficult to suggest 
any remedy for the regrettable state of things 
that resulted. There seemed no choice but to 
leave society to work out its own salvation as 
soon as it recognised its error. 

Among the natives women held a position 
of equality with men, and even received con- 
siderable attention from them, sharing their 
amusements everywhere. Men and women 
were always seen together. A woman could 
be or do anything. Social intercourse between 
the sexes was absolutely unfettered. Boys and 
girls, youths and maidens, mixed freely. Love- 
matches were the rule, and I have often seen 
dusky faces illuminated by " love light." The 
young people chose each other, and either of 
them might take the initiative plunge. Pre- 
Hminaries being settled, the prospective bride- 
groom sent a friend to the prospective bride's 
father, informing him of his wish to marry the 
child daughter. Consent followed almost as a 
matter of course, and the bridegroom then sent 



124 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

a present of a bottle of rum to the bride's father, 
and the bargain was fully recognised. An 
auspicious day was chosen for the marriage, 
and copious potations being the custom, the 
festival lasted for weeks on a stretch, with 
''fiddling and dancing and serving the devil." 
For that time at least '' they toil not, neither 
do they spin," but spend day after day and 
night after night in a paradise of brawls. 

That the native ladies were as a rule attrac- 
tive, a personal reminiscence will abundantly 
prove. It is a difficult thing to say just where 
boyhood and manhood part. There is no strict 
line of demarcation. But in my own case, and I 
fancy in most cases, it is marked by the sud- 
denly developed feeling of reverence for woman- 
hood. When a woman ceases to be regarded 
with carelessness, and the idea of woman in its 
pomp of loveliness and purity dawns upon the 
young mind, boyhood has ended for ever, and 
the gravity of manhood, with all its woes and 
cares, and all its self-sufficing and self-respect- 
ing views and instincts, has commenced. I 
remember the day — gth November, 1859 — when 
this spring was touched in my humble self. It 
was a superb summer day, and I was busy 
behind the counter of my little store. By-and- 
by the door opened, and three native ladies 



IMPRESSIONS— GENERAL REMARKS. 125 

came in. They made themselves very much 
at home, coming inside the counter as they 
pleased, the better to examine our new stock 
of goods, I myself not escaping their keen 
scrutiny, as part and parcel of the stuff im- 
ported from another world. Up and down 
stairs they flitted, enjoying themselves im- 
mensely, chattering gaily in Cree, Salteaux, 
English, anything. One of the trio, a shade 
darker in skin than the others, but with 
exquisite black eyes and the features of a 
Grecian statue, asked me very politely to go 
upstairs with her, as she had found a pair of 
gloves she would like. Soon, amid much 
innocent laughter and gaiety, I was fitting a 
glove on her little hand. Heavens ! what a 
spirit of joy radiated from her eyes ! She was 
dressed in deep mourning, but there was no 
trace of gloom in her gay explanation, " I am 
two-thirds Scotch, you know, and my grand- 
father is not long dead." I must have looked 
my admiration too openly, for she blushed 
suddenly. Evanescent as the colour was, it 
was enough, and I reaHsed that she was a 
woman. I never beheld her face again. She 
went to the Canadas and never returned. But 
she had opened a new chapter of existence for 
me, and life was a graver thing thereafter. 



126 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

Indeed, I saw much to admire in these half- 
breed folk as a race. They had much ingenuity, 
resolution, tolerance, hospitality, discretion, 
and various other qualities not over-rife on 
this planet. But as to ethical or intellectual 
virtue, the habit of right choice in moral or 
mental questions, the query of the philo- 
sophers lies still before us unanswered. Can 
these things be taught ? 

After some skirmishes between autumn and 
winter, snow and frost laid hold of the ground 
sufficiently to enable the annual northern 
packet to leave the fort for the northern 
districts. The first stretch was three hundred 
and fifty miles over the ice on Lake Winnipeg 
to Norway House. The party set out on loth 
December, and the means of transit were in the 
first place sledges, drawn by splendid dogs, 
and in the second snowshoes. These sledges 
(of Indian design) were drawn by four dogs 
to each, and carried a burden of six to seven 
hundred pounds. With such a load they 
travelled forty miles a day. The dogs, whose 
career, poor things, would end tragically at the 
next autumn dog feast, were yoked in fitting 
harness, set with little bells, which cheered the 
flagged spirits of the voyagers with their merry 
jingle. They traversed the frozen lake in eight 



IMPRESSIONS— GENERAL REMARKS. 127 

days, running at a quick jog-trot from long 
before daybreak until dusk, when a frozen 
whitefish, about two pounds in weight, was 
thrown to each dog and devoured with a 
voracity only equalled by the devourer's 
devourer next year. At the end of the first 
stage the packet was overhauled and repacked, 
one portion for the Bay, the other for the 
Saskatchewan and the far-off Mackenzie dis- 
tricts. For this new sets of packet-bearers 
travelled eastward, westward, and northward, 
while the first stage party returned to the fort 
with the packet from the Bay. Not till the 
end of the following February did the packet- 
bearers from west and north reach us overland 
by Fort Carlton, on the great Saskatchewan 
River. As for news from the outside world, 
that was as impossible for us, at least at this 
season, as from the planet Jupiter. 

By the time the first party returned Christmas 
festivities were in full swing, and dances and 
entertainments were the order of the day. Not 
a glance had I to spare, however, for any such, 
my spare time being all devoted to study, espe- 
cially to the study of the Indian language. 
For instruction in this I employed a young 
half-breed, undertaking to pay him a pint and 
a half of Demerara rum per week, worth about 



128 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

45. 6d.j by means of which he might start a 
ball or dance. All he aimed at was '' to make 
a start," trusting to other young men to do 
the same and finish up the quantum. Judging 
from the amount consumed, the inhabitants 
must have been positively drenched in liquor. 

Amid the festivities a sad and sensational 
piece of news reached us. The Company had 
recently established a freighting post some two 
hundred miles away on United States territory, 
and had called it Georgetown, in compliment 
to its governor. The post was in charge of 
a Scotch half-breed, who had obtained leave 
to visit the settlement for three very special 
purposes, viz., in the first place, to share in his 
native country's Christmas festivities ; in the 
second, to enjoy a chat with and to console 
his aged Indian mother ; and last, but not least, 
to marry and take one of his country's daughters 
back with him to his semi-civilised post, in the 
neighbourhood of that savage warrior " Sitting 
Bull," the Sioux Indian chief, on the plains of 
Minnesota. The bride-elect was likewise a 
Scotch half-breed, and, to make the tragedy the 
more touching, it was said that it was a love- 
match. They had known each other from 
childhood, and were in the same social position. 
He had served at many posts in the North, was 



IMPRESSIONS— GENERAL REMARKS. 129 

a first-rate traveller, accustomed from early 
boyhood to such work. Though intensely 
attached to his lady-love, he would not marry 
till he was sure of a commission as trader in 
the service, a distinction which he was to 
receive in the early spring. From my fort 
dogs and men were sent on to meet him and 
bring him into the colony, but he was too 
impatient to wait for these, and started over 
the uninhabited waste prairie with mules and a 
waggon, a means of conveyance quite inconsis- 
tent with the severity of the cold — fifty degrees 
of frost. But his strong constitution and the 
object of his visit made him rash. About fifty 
miles from our post at Pembina, on the boundary 
line, he found his party had run short of pro- 
visions, and he then volunteered to start to this 
post alone, with the intention of sending back 
assistance. He thought of reaching the post 
at the end of the first day's travel, but found 
it impossible and had to take shelter in the 
snow. The succeeding morning he resumed 
his journey, but alas ! in the wrong direction. 
During the second night he kept running in 
a circle to preserve the circulation ; but hope 
appears to have finally deserted him, and having 
hung a portion of his clothing on a tree to 
attract the attention of any passers-by, he lay 

S.K. K 



I30 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

down, and was found with one hand on his 
heart and the other containing a compass, 
frozen to death. A severe snowstorm had 
raged during the nights he had spent on that 
waste plain fighting for dear hfe, the thermo- 
meter having fallen to forty-five degrees below 
zero ; while a searching north wind blew merci- 
lessly over the lonely waste, carrying the spirit 
of the lost traveller into the gloom. At the 
open mouth of the grave the bride, her petite 
figure clad in the deepest mourning, was the 
cynosure of all eyes. Poor thing, it was too 
much for her, and she was carried away more 
dead than alive, having only one desire, that of 
being placed with her lover in the cold frozen 
grave. My young heart bled for her, and, 
hidden behind the crowd, found relief in a 
flood of boyish tears. One more event, and 
this year of my initiation is closed. The first 
newspaper ever published in the country was 
established on 28th December and called '' The 
Nor'-Wester," the project being carried out by 
two enterprising Canadians named Buckingham 
and Caldwell, who had had some experience in 
connection with the Press in Ontario. The 
two-sheeted infant appeared once a fortnight, 
and cost three dollars per annum ; its reading 
matter was dear at three cents. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

GENERAL EVENTS DURING 1860 — 1868. 
i860. 

After a long winter of festivity, fiddling and 
dancing through all the frozen months, a portion 
of the population, on the approach of spring, 
turned again to the labour of farming, freight- 
ing, and buffalo hunting on the plains. Early 
in June two fleets of boats left the fort for 
Portage Laloche to take the Mackenzie River 
goods and bring back furs on their return for 
transport to Hudson Bay. Two specially 
qualified river guides accompanied this annual 
expedition. Their names were Alexis L'Espe- 
rance and Baptiste Bruce. L'Esperance was 
a Canadian of long service, since 1815 in fact, 
and in 1824 ^^as a midman in Sir George 
Simpson's canoe on a visit to the Island of 
Vancouver. Other fleets of boats were dis- 
patched to Hudson's Bay, and many oxen were 
yoked in the Red River carts for the journey 
across the plains to the Saskatchewan and 

K 2 



132 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

Swan River districts. These were to return 
to us loaded with the staple food of the country, 
pemmican and dried meat. The country was 
entirely self-sustaining, and in its supply of 
fish, flesh and fowl had probably no equal in 
the world. 

The autumn white fishing was another 
important annual event. MilHons of these 
excellent fish were thus secured, hung on spits 
to be frozen, and then carried home on sledges 
to be divStributed free of charge to the colony. 
Wild fruits were never lacking, gooseberries, 
strawberries, raspberries, plums and different 
varieties of currants of excellent flavour. Wild 
flowers and blossoming shrubs bloomed in the 
woods and prairies as soon as the snow melted. 
Foremost were the anemones, which covered 
the yet frozen prairie with a lovely carpet of 
colours, each flower being provided by Nature 
with a tiny cloak, which the slender blossom 
draws around it for protection when the winds 
are chill. And one might walk all day through 
fields of magnificent lilies. The red and June 
cherries were the first to put on their gar- 
lands, and then the woods were white with the 
profusion of their blossom. The hawthorn 
followed — a dwarf tree — but so loaded with 
bloom that each seemed one single nosegay. 



GENERAL EVENTS DURING i860— 1868. 133 

But the spirea was the most beautiful of all, 
with its pink and white cone-shaped flower 
clusters poised on every branch. Honeysuckles 
adorned the prairie, hops grew in abundance 
in the woods, winter berries, the partridge's 
favourite, grev/ in wood and plain alike. 

By right of the Company's Charles II. 
Charter, it ruled the colony absolutely. The 
Councillors of Assiniboia held their office in 
virtue of commissions granted to them by it, 
emanating from its house in London. The 
Council met at Fort Garry, and the public 
were not admitted to its deliberations. Two 
Bishops, the Governor, and a few of the more 
influential colonists, formed the Bench, pre- 
sided over by the Company's M.D. In 1849 
a half-breed named Sayer was apprehended 
on a charge of trading furs with the Indians 
and put upon his trial. He was convicted, 
but the prisoner's compatriots surrounded the 
place of his confinement with the avowed 
intention of liberating him and killing the 
man who locked him up. No further attempt 
to dispute its absolute authority was made 
until late in 1859, when a Canadian named 
McKennay suddenly appeared on the scene and 
commenced, in the broad face of day, to build 
a hotel, naming it, although carpeted with 



134 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

sawdust only, the '* Royal Hotel." But the 
Company, fearing nothing, looked on this time 
with unruffled indifference. A Committee of 
the British House of Commons sat, in 1857, 
to inquire into the isolated settlement on the 
Red River, with the result that two Canadians, 
civil engineers, were employed for two years 
to survey a part of the country with a view to a 
route on British soil from a point on Lake 
Superior to Fort Garry. In i860 one of these 
gentlemen published the result of his experiences 
in a popular form ; calling his book *' The 
Narrative of the Canadian Red River Explor- 
ing Expedition of 1857 ^^^ ^^ ^^^ Assiniboine 
and Saskatchewan Exploring Expedition of 
1858." This was almost all that came of this 
first venture, and the matter was allowed to 
rest. Early in i860 the scheme was altogether 
abandoned, on the somewhat absurd ground 
of physical difficulties. The Annual Council 
of the Company was not held that summer, 
owing to the illness of Sir George Simpson. 
The sad news of his death, near Montreal, 
reached us in September. Swift gave it for 
his opinion that whoever could make two ears 
of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon 
a spot of ground where only one grew before 
would deserve better of mankind, and do more 



GENERAL EVENTS DURING i860— 1868. 135 

essential service to his country, than the whole 
race of politicians put together. What there 
is of truth in this famous saying may be applied 
to Sir George Simpson. Districts where there 
was one post when he entered on his duty 
of Governor, had now their tens. He had 
opened a new door for commerce and civilisa- 
tion and discovered a new country, and this 
he did by his great journey, a stupendous feat 
in those da3^s, from Montreal, through the 
uninhabited wilds of North America, the vast 
territories of the Russian Empire, to London, 
and across the Atlantic to the starting-point. 
I may be forgiven for supposing that he was 
peculiarly fitted by the Celtic elements in his 
temperament, and by the influences under 
which he passed as a young man, to fill his 
important position. It cast a gravity over us 
all to hear that this veteran pillar of the Com- 
pany had passed away, and was now, like so 
many travellers and administrators of our 
history, one of the men of the past. 

Our annual mail, by York Factory, also 
brought us the sad news of the fate of our 
companion barque Kitty^ which we had ex- 
pected to meet in Hudson Straits on our 
outward journey last year. She had been 
nipped and crushed to pieces in the ice 



136 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

there, on tlie 5th September, off the middle 
Savages. The crew left the ship in two boats; 
and after indescribable miseries, made the 
land on the dreary Saddle Back Island. Both 
the boats then attempted to cross the straits, 
and work their way down to Labrador. Sixty- 
one days after, one of them reached the 
northernmost of the Moravian Missions. The 
other boat, with the captain and ten men, landed 
on Akpatok Island. They w^ere at first hos- 
pitabl}' received by the pagan Eskimos, but as 
food grew scarce, and the natives began to 
realise their helpless condition, they were all 
murdered one night while sleeping in their 
tent. This happened in January, i860, a 
terrible fate which, by the care of a kind 
Providence, we had escaped. 

At the same time we heard of the safe return 
of the steam yacht Fox\ Captain L. McClintock, 
with the authentic news of the sad fate of 
Sir John Franklin and his brave crew, at 
last putting an end to all conjecture as to the 
actual spot where they suffered and died — a 
curious fulfilment of the prediction of the 
native conjurer at Fort York, early in Septem- 
ber of last year ! 

No chapter in modern history is more 
touching than that which tells of Franklin's 



GENERAL EVENTS DURING i860— 1868. 137 

mysterious disappearance from this world, and 
of the untiring efforts made by his devoted wife 
to trace him and his comrades — refusing to 
admit that efforts for his rescue were futile, 
hoping against hope and persevering to the 
last. At last Captain McClintock succeeded 
in doing all that could be done, and the world 
knew that the explorer, already recognised as 
one of the heroes of civilisation, was also one 
of its martyrs. 

One more tragic tale and I conclude the 
history of this year. In the beginning of 
November a Roman Catholic priest, returning 
from a mission of kindness among the Indians, 
was overtaken by a furious tempest such as 
only these waste open plains know. His horse 
succumbed under the cold, and when the man 
dismounted he found to his dismay that his 
legs would no longer support him. All he 
could do was to dig a hole in the snow, and 
drag his already frozen limbs into the cold bed, 
placing his horse to the weather side for pro- 
tection from the piercing north wind. The 
horse died, and he cut strips of its flesh off 
and ate them raw with relish. With only a 
buffalo robe for covering, he lay thus for four 
days and five nights, when he was found 
by a traveller and brought to Mr. Rollette, 



138 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

an American official on the frontier. This 
gentleman gave him the shelter and comfort 
of his house, but soon the flesh began to fall 
away from the bones in horrible pieces. The 
amputation of one leg and one foot became 
necessary. He was removed to St. Boniface's 
Cathedral, where a still worse fate awaited 
him, for that magnificent building was burnt 
to the ground on 14th December. From 
the burning flames the poor half-dead cripple 
was carried with the bedding on which he lay, 
scarcely escaping death by sufl"ocation. One 
man was burnt to death in this fire, and a costly 
library, the only one in the colony, was utterly 
destroyed. 

1861. 

One event ever memorable to me marked the 
spring of 1861. That was the death of my 
friend Mr. Angus McDonald, who had been 
the means of placing me where I was. He 
had been stationed at Fort Garry, twenty 
miles away, and we met as often as we could, 
and wrote to each other frequently. His 
letters were full of genuine and friendly advice, 
and if I was tempted to step aside from the 
path of duty he did not fail to point out to me 
the pitfalls that awaited my youthful feet. 



GENERAL EVENTS DURING 1860-1868. 139 

Happy and thankful I am to say that the 
Governor had given him good accounts of my 
energy and abiHty, being pleased that already 
I might be classed as a first-rate Indian 
linguist. Thus the last letter I ever received 
from him was one of congratulation and 
approval, a circumstance it gladdens me to 
remember. For some time he had been in 
bad health, and at last, unexpectedly, I received 
a summons to his bedside. Alas ! our meeting 
and our parting were such as words of mine 
cannot describe. They passed, and the end 
came, and after it the funeral in Kildonan 
Churchyard. There were no pipes to play a 
coronach over this son of the isles, no strains 
of ** The Land of the Leal " or "• Lochaber no 
more " to follow him to his grave. But the 
psalm was sung which lifts the thoughts of 
mourners from the fragility of human life to 
the immortality of Him to Whom a thousand 
years are but as yesterday when it is past and 
as a watch in the night. A mile in length, the 
procession glided along the river ice, and the 
folk from the old country and the dusky natives 
of the new lined the river banks and sobbed as 
they watched it pass. This was his funeral's 
unbidden and unmarshalled pomp. His life 
of strenuous industry and stainless purity, his 



140 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

genial and kindly temper, made him an example 
and support to his comrades. He was one of 
those rare Christian souls for whom indeed this 
world is too vexed and rough a scene, but to 
whom affection will never grudge her tenderest 
memories. His loss to me v/as irreparable. 
I placed a stone at the head of his grave in 
token of my never-dying esteem. 

Erected by his friend Roderick Campbell. 



In loving memory of 

ANGUS Mcdonald, 

Born in the parish of Ness, Island of Lewis, Scotland, in 1834. 

Died at Fort Garry, Red River Settlement, Hudson 

Bay Company's Territory, ist April, 1861. 

During this year the country suffered much 
from floods, one of the most serious obstacles 
to agriculture in this flat land. Some of the 
colonists remembered similar inundations in 
i8og, 1826, and 1852, attributable, like the 
present, to two causes, (i) late springs and 
sudden thaws of deep snow, (2) the lack of 
sufficient means of drainage. The river 
course being tortuous and extremely flat, all 
landmarks were completely obliterated, the 
landscape being transformed into one vast 
ocean, and the ohly means of communication 
were boats and Indian bark canoes. Except 



GENERAL EVENTS DURING i860— 1868. 141 

my fort, which stood on a high, solid bank of 
Hmestone, the whole colony, and far into the 
United States, was under water. Houses, 
barns and stables floated on the surface, travel- 
ling slowly to the lower level of Lake Winnipeg, 
cocks crowing on the roofs as they glided to 
destruction. The crops were nil^ but the pros- 
pects of good buffalo hunting and lake fisheries 
later on alleviated the fears of the inhabitants. 

In the midst of this a second destructive 
fire broke out and entirely destroyed four 
large buildings on the premises of the Roman 
Catholic Mission of St. Boniface, which con- 
tained valuable stores for the use of the inland 
stations of this vast diocese. The adherents 
of St. Boniface were the poorest in the colony, 
and the misery caused by flood and fire lay 
heavily upon them. About the same time 
occurred the death of the oldest resident 
Sister of Charity, the first of her Order in 
the North. No spot of dry land existed to 
serve as a place of interment, and the body 
had to be kept to wait the subsiding of the 
flood. 

In August Paullet Chartrain fatally stabbed 
John Monkman with a chisel during a drinking 
bout. An indictment was drawn up, and he was 
found guilty and sentenced — to a few months' 



142 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

confinement. The medical head magistrate 
having died, we were thus apparently left 
destitute of law. Nor had we a substitute in 
military occupation. 

Meanwhile the builder of the *' Royal Hotel'* 
had begun to write himself down a ''Company," 
his half-brother. Dr. J. C. Schultz, having 
arrived. This gentleman proved to be the 
most formidable opponent my Company had 
as yet encountered. He took over the *' Nor'- 
Wester " newspaper, and made the Company's 
''iniquitous and worthless charter" the object 
of his periodical assaults. It was, he declared, 
a gross imposition on the credulity of the 
people, and ought not to be tolerated for a day. 

It was in 1861, too, that a small steamboat 
first pHed upon the river. The Indians hated 
and feared it, seeing it going miraculously 
v/ithout oars or sail, and called it a "water- 
devil," motioning it back with incantations 
and exorcisms. Its career was short, how- 
ever, as it sank in its winter berth. 

1862. 

The New Year broke sadly for me. I had 

not yet recovered from the loss of my friend. 

Outward things went on as usual, but the 

mere change of a figure in the calendar meant 



GENERAL EVENTS DURING i860— 1868. 143 

much to me, — as indeed it does to us all every 
year, though why it should is difficult to say. 
We know what the old year has taken from us, 
and yet we ask ourselves with unquenched 
hope, what manner of good thing the bantling 
has for us, wrapped in the folds of his swaddling 
clothes. 

It was during this spring of 1862 that we 
made a second clutch at the skirts of civilisa- 
tion. It took the form of a scientific associa- 
tion, to be called the *' Institute of Rupert's 
Land " ; and our worthy foe, the doctor- 
editor, became secretary. After a short and 
erratic, in fact somewhat staggering career, it 
died of inanition. 

This spring also witnessed a threatening of 
famine among the poorer portion of the com- 
munity, particularly the French and Swampy 
Indians. Scores of starving people besieged 
us daily, asking for food, though their needs 
must have been fictitious, as they had fish in 
abundance. Later on, in the season for seed 
wheat, the grain, instead of being sown in the 
ground, was roasted in pans and eaten, to save 
labour ! Thus we got no return for our trouble 
and expense. And as it turned out, the little 
that was sown was destroyed by a hailstorm 
which passed over the colony. 



144 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

On i8th May our new Governor, A. G. 
Dallas, Esq., arrived at Fort Garry, a man so 
extraordinarily tall and thin that it was one of 
our irreverent jests to say that he was one who 
compelled a second look, if only to see to the 
top of him. He brought a piper with him, and 
the unfamiHar strains of music, the ribboned 
pipes, and the player in feathered Glengarry 
and the garb of Old Gaul, brought crowds of 
savages to gaze with wonder on the novel 
spectacle. 

On the 26th May the steamer International 
arrived in the colony, bringing one hundred 
and sixty Canadians, who had come with the 
intention of acting as pioneers in the discovery 
of an overland route to the Cariboo goldfields, 
now famous for their rich repositories of gold 
and ** surface indication." A nev/ judge vv^as also 
among her passengers, as well as many private 
individuals, come for the purpose of buying 
furs. Up to now very little of this private 
trading existed. Under the privileges granted 
by my Company's much-abused charter, indis- 
criminate fur-trading in its territory was 
illegal. But it was becoming clear that, under 
the influence of a somewhat sophisticated 
newspaper, and steam communication with the 
greatest Republic in the world, our isolation 



GENERAL EVENTS DURING i860— 1868. 145 

was doomed, and our intercourse with the 
civilised world assured. Parties without 
number were fitting out expeditions by boats 
to penetrate into our hitherto private domain ; 
and apparently all we could do was to look 
on, or quietly do our best to counteract their 
efforts. Foremost in this new development 
was the doctor-editor, our inveterate and 
invulnerable opponent. It would have paid 
my Company to have made him a chief factor 
on the first day of his arrival in the colony, or 
to have pensioned him off for the rest of his 
natural life at ;^4,ooo a year, and sent him 
back to Canada to enjoy it. On the 14th June 
our new Governor embarked from the fort in 
a boat, which we had provided to convey him, 
to attend his first Northern Council at Norway 
House, this being the first stage of a lengthened 
tour of inspection through the country under his 
administration, from which he returned home, 
by the prairie route, on the 30th September. 

In August Lord Milton and Dr. Cheadle 
arrived in the colony, in the course of a journey 
across the entire continent, only part of which 
task was to be accomplished this year. Another 
of our visitors was an American gentleman on 
his way home from the Arctic Circle, where he 
had spent three years in connection with the 

s.K. L 



146 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

Smithsonian Institution at Washington. He 
was of a positively alarming patriotism. Woe 
betide the unfortunate wight who criticised 
Uncle Sam in his presence ! 

Various parties of hopeful and intrepid 
Cariboo miners passed through the fort as 
the year went on. Truly the gold they were 
in search of would have been as cheaply pro- 
cured from any firm of bankers. 

The new Judge, Mr. John Black, was not 
new to the country, having served the Company 
for a period of fifteen years. Of course the 
Nor' -Wester made much capital out of this, 
pronouncing it merely a party appointment, 
by which the Judge was to help his former 
colleagues. 

Soon afterwards a second distinguished 
party arrived in our midst, that of the Earl of 
Dunmore and Captains Cooper and Thynne, 
They were on a buffalo and bear hunting expe- 
dition, and had narrowly escaped the scalping 
knives of the ''braves" of the Sioux chief 
*' Little Crow " while croSvSing the plains of 
Minnesota and Dakota. This wily chief made 
a sudden and unexplained attack upon Fort 
Ridgeley and the town of New Ulm, destroying 
the latter completely. The wholesale massacre 
of the white settlers on the Minnesota and 



GENERAL EVENTS DURING i860— 1868. 147 

Sunk Rivers followed. Nearly two thousand 
persons were murdered amid circumstances of 
the most appalling barbarity. Men were shot 
down, children tortured and burnt alive, and 
their mothers slaughtered with the tomahawk. 
Our stage-coach was also attacked, and the 
passengers killed and scalped mercilessly, so 
that the route was again closed, and we were 
isolated once more. 

Uneasiness breeds fear, and a meeting was 
held inviting the settlers to sign a petition to 
the Colonial Secretary asking for troops. I 
was now ordered to discontinue the system of 
paying cash for ** country produce." This was 
about the first move of our new Governor, and 
one for which he was severely taken to task by 
the Nor' 'Wester and not a few of the settlers. 

1863. 
In 1863 came my first promotion. Governor 
Dallas left the fort on a tour of inspection in 
the Southern Department via Lac La Pluie, 
but first he held the Northern Council at Fort 
Garry instead of Norway House. There it 
was decided that I should be placed in charge 
of a new post at the head of Berens River, in 
the Norway House district. Such an appoint- 
ment, after only three years' service, was a 

L 2 



148 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

unique circumstance, and I naturally felt 
greatly gratified, especially as the Governor 
himself presented me with a forty-guinea first- 
class wire-twist gun in appreciation, as he 
kindly phrased it, of my services.* 

On 13th August I took leave of my fort and 
my friends, and embarked in one of the brigades- 
boats bound for York Factory. I was to land 
at the mouth of the Berens River, and pro- 
ceed to my destination far up near its source. 
A regular north-east monsoon, never before 
known in the land, blew during the journey, 
and, instead of crossing Lake Winnipeg in five 
days, we took twenty-three and a half. The 
result was that the boatmen mutinied, and I 
was landed at the starting-point of my new 
journey sick at heart and depressed. 

This storm brought wider disaster, however, 
than my personal disappointment, for the 
Company lost a year's outfit through the 
disablement of three ships : the Anglo- 
Saxon^ Canada^ and Ocean Nymph. A brigade 
of two hundred carts sent to Fort Abercrombie 
late in autumn to bring back loads returned 
empty ! 

A very distinguished member of my Company 

* The letter from the officer in charge intimating my 
appointment will be found in the Appendix. 



GENERAL EVENTS DURING i860— 1868. 149 

died this year, Mr. Edward Ellice. In a super- 
stitious world his passing away from it might 
by some be taken as cause and effect of the 
many disasters which the Company have 
suffered commercially during it. He began 
life as the deadly opponent of the Company, 
was the most active spirit in the North-West 
Company, which fought against as well as 
competed with it. In later life he became a 
member of Parliament, and a member of Earl 
Grey's Administration, and the founder of the 
Reform Club. Mr. Ellice thus mildly resembled 
the famous Frenchman Radisson, who fought 
for France in Hudson's Bay, and he fought 
with equal valour as a servant of the Hudson's 
Bay Company, passing without compunction 
from one master to another, yet preferring, of 
course, as Dugald Dalgetty would have done, 
to serve most heartily the master who treated 
him the most liberally. Only Radisson was 
an adventurer in the modern acceptation of 
the word, and resembled Dugald Dalgetty 
more closely than any other character in our 
history. Six years ago (1857) evidence was 
given, at a Select Committee of the House of 
Commons, that the soil of the Red River 
valley was fertile, and that wheat would 
flourish. Some witnesses denied this, and 



I50 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

Mr. Ellice was leader and chief among them, 
nay impressed his views upon his colleagues 
so strongly that the opening of the Hudson's 
Bay Territory to the settlers was postponed to 
the end of the charter — twelve years, telling 
them that ice was found two feet below the 
surface in this Red River in the month oi 
August. In this he might, though wrong, be 
perfectly sincere, being unaware that this was 
a cause which made wheat and other vegetables 
come to maturity with such marvellous luxuriant 
grovvlh. When the report of Mr. Labouchere 
(afterwards Lord Taunton), the chairman, was 
submitted to his colleagues, Mr. Gladstone 
submitted another, and the votes for both were 
equal, the draft report of the chairman being 
carried by the chairman's casting vote. He 
and his fellows desired and laboured to pre- 
serve the monopoly which my Company had 
exercised for two centuries, and from which 
the earlier members had drawn the enormous 
dividends of 300 per cent, that they succeeded. 
This marvellous result was due chiefly to the 
trade in furs alone. 

The Indians, too, gave us a good deal of 
concern during this year. Ever since the 
atrocious massacres by the Sioux in Minnesota 
the previous year constant rumours had been 



GENERAL EVENTS DURING i860— 1868. 151 

afloat regarding the alleged intentions of that 
barbarous tribe to pay the colony a visit. In 
the end of May, 1863, this rumour became a 
reality, and a band of eighty Sioux '* braves," 
under the leadership of that vv^ily chief '' Little 
Crow," actually arrived with a complaint to 
our Governor against the Americans, who had 
not kept faith with them. '' Little Crow" 
had been induced to give up some prisoners 
under pretext of exchange, but after the Ameri- 
cans had been safely sent back it was found 
that the Indians had been hanged some time 
before. As he knew he was no match for the 
enemy in sharp practice or otherwise, he begged 
our Governor to exert his influence in inducing 
General Sibley to come to terms with him. 
The Governor promised to do what he could, 
and after he presented them with some pro- 
visions — ammunition he would not give — they 
took their departure, and the colony once more 
breathed freely. Later on this formidable and 
able chief was found dead on the plains, but 
the manner of his death was never known to 
us. As it turned out, Brigadier-General Sibley 
did not do very much harm to the Sioux, who 
had crossed the boundary to elude his troops. 
He made efforts to employ a Roman Catholic 
priest, Pere Andre, as ambassador, but the 



152 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

Indians distrusted both his efficiency and the 
General's good faith after having been already 
deceived by him. 

Meanwhile our Governor had been making his 
southern tour, and in doing so he encountered 
Senator Ramsay, of Minnesota, who had come 
on a treaty mission to negotiate with two 
thousand six hundred Chippeways near Red 
Lake. By arrangement with the Senator, Mr. 
Dallas effected a great improvement in our 
mails, establishing a system of '' through bags." 

One other interesting circumstance of this 
year was the arrival, by northern express, of a 
parcel of documents which had been wander- 
ing for twelve years among the Eskimos within 
the Arctic Circle. While her Majesty's dis- 
covery ship Investigator was lying off Cape 
Bathurst, in the Polar Sea, her commander. Sir 
R. McClure, gave the packet in charge to an 
Eskimo there to be delivered at the nearest of 
our posts, and so forwarded to England by the 
Company's packets. It was discovered by a 
Mr. Roderick McFarlane,* a native of my calf 
country, an officer of high talents and a very 
sensible, clear-headed man. 

* Copies of Commander McClure's letter and other corre- 
spondence relating to these documents, thus lost for thirteen 
years, will be found in Appendix, 



GENERAL EVENTS DURING i860— 1868. 153 

1864. 

In 1864 the ** Royal Hotel " had become an 
embryo village, and, as it seemed, the focus of 
the Red River land question. Where the 
Company had formerly sold land at 75. dd. 
per acre, it was now selling at £^0 per square 
chain. The year before a report had reached 
us that the International Financial Association 
had negotiated the actual transfer of my Com- 
pany's stock in the London market, and that 
it had thus become extinct. '' And," added 
the Nor'-WesteVj "its officers have been sold 
'like dumb, driven cattle.'" The news gave 
impetus to both American and Canadian 
residents to buy up land near Fort Garry at 
any price, which proved the beginning and the 
end of the Company's monopoly, by means of 
which it used to sell to settlers large plots of 
ground on a lease of nine hundred and ninety- 
nine years, for which it granted deeds. Now 
buildings began to appear here and there on 
the bare prairie, each like a Noah's ark on an 
interminable sea of grass. 

In September a large party of wretched- 
looking Sioux Indians arrived in the colony. 
There were four hundred lodges, including 
some four thousand souls, divided into four 



154 THE Fx\THER OF ST. KILDA. 

bands. These were the Indians who had 
committed the barbarous massacre of white 
people in Minnesota already mentioned. The 
authorities of that state had sent a Major 
Hatch to form a frontier garrison at Pembina, 
hence their retreat to us for refuge. But who 
could trust them ? We felt that they might at 
any moment repeat their cruelty, making us 
their victims, defenceless as we were. They 
were starving, poor creatures, and were quite 
willing to sell their children for food. And we 
had little to give them, a scorching heat and 
extreme drought having greatly injured our 
harvest the year before, so that flour was selling 
at 30s. per hundred pounds. Major Hatch had 
paid as high as 125. per bushel for inferior 
grain for horse feed. Three little white chil- 
dren, whose parents had been massacred, were 
taken from them by private people ; and the Grey 
Nuns purchased a boy and three girls for a hun- 
dredweight of pemmican. In v/inter some of the 
Major's officers visited the colony and gained 
over some of the residents to a scheme for 
kidnapping the principal Sioux chiefs. They 
selected "Little Six," a half-brother ot 
" Little Crow," and another named " Medicine 
Bottle," and having allowed them to drink as 
much alcohol as they chose, they carried them 



GENERAL EVENTS DURING i860— 1868. 155 

off, to wake on American soil, a device 
surely more remarkable for its sharp practice 
than its honour or humanity. 

Sad news reached us of a party of miners 
who had passed through the colony en route for 
the Cariboo gold diggings in 1862. Three of the 
five were brothers, which made the story the 
more tragic. In order to shoot a certain rapid 
on the Fraser River with greater safety, they 
had lashed their two frail canoes together. 
They were swamped, and their cargoes lost. 
Two of the three brothers Rennie swam ashore, 
while the other three men landed on a bare 
granite boulder in midstream. There they 
remained without food for forty-eight hours, 
after which, by the aid of a rope, they were 
hauled to the bank, frost-bitten and wholly 
exhausted. The other two started for the 
Company's nearest fort, which took them 
twenty-eight days to reach. Indians in the 
meantime found the other three men, but only 
two alive. Maddened by starvation, they had 
killed the other and gnawed his flesh. Later 
one of the survivors did the same to the other, 
and at last died himself. Their bones were 
found in spring. The Indians who had seen 
this act of cannibalism declared that they 
dared not approach the spot, as the men had 



156 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

utterly lost their reason, and were quite 
demoniac. 

As to events in the fort during the year, I 
must not forget to chronicle the inauguration 
of a lodge of Freemasons, called "The 
Northern Light," with our doctor-editor as 
Worshipful Master. Many of the residents, 
natives included, urged by curiosity or other 
motive, entered the mystic brotherhood, and 
soon a large section of our population went 
about with an air of solemnity and wisdom, 
clothed in mystery. 

In May Governor Dallas and Bishop Ander- 
son left the colony, and Mr. William McTavish, 
Governor of Assiniboia, succeeded to the 
governorship of Rupert's Land. In June Dr. 
J. Rae,the Arctic explorer, and a Mr. Schwieger, 
C.E., passed through the colony on a journey 
across the continent prospecting with a view 
to laying down a telegraph line contemplated 
by the Company's new stockholders. 

To our experience of the evils of droughts, 
floods, frosts, and Indians was now added that 
of a plague of locusts such as had only twice 
before been equalled, viz., in 1818 and 1857. 
The heat of the summer was exceptional, 
120° in the shade, and when the rain came in 
July it brought in its train countless millions 



GENERAL EVENTS DURING i860— 1868. 137 

of locusts that cleared the landscape of every 
green leaf. 

This year saw also the founding of our first 
cricket club, another step to civilisation, and 
also one sad retrograde movement intellectually 
in the total destruction by fire of the offices of 
the Nor' -Wester. Two of the Company's 
ships, the Prince of Wales and Prince Arthur, 
unfortunately, grounded on the shores of 
Mansfield Island, at the western end of 
Hudson's Straits, and Captain Sennet and two 
of his officers passed through the colony on 
their way home. 

1865. 

The locusts of last year had left their legacy 
of eggs in the proportion of something like 
sixty to one. They lay these in little white 
silklike bags a few inches beneath the ground, 
where in some marvellous way they defy the 
frosts of a whole winter. They came to life 
in countless, unimaginable multitudes. No 
green thing got beyond the budding stage, and 
the sap was drawn from everything that 
attempted to live into the summer. Potatoes, 
cabbage, onions, and even horseradish were 
included in their bill of fare, and sometimes 
they even fell upon each other, so that the 



158 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

stench from the heaps of dead became a- 
serious evil, and we had to take them in cart- 
loads to the river. On the 13th June the new 
Governor of Rupert's Land left the fort to 
hold his first council at Norway House, accom- 
panied by his nephew, Mr. J. J. Hargrave, as 
private secretary. The Venerable Archdeacon 
Cochran, who had done much missionary work 
throughout the entire length of the colony for 
the past forty years, left the scene of his long 
labours for Canada, with the full intention of 
not returning. Arriving there, his health 
failed him, and he at once returned, but only 
to die suddenly. He was buried beneath the 
shadow of St. Andrew's Church, hard by, 
which he laboured to build many years ago. 
He was succeeded in his archdeaconry by the 
Rev. J. McLean, of King's College, Aberdeen. 
Bishop Anderson had been succeeded by the 
Right Rev. Robert Machray, also an Aber- 
donian Fellow and Dean of Sidney College, 
Cambridge, and Vicar of Madingley. On the 
first Sunday in Advent he introduced a weekly 
system of offertory in all his churches, a 
unique parochial alteration. 

Great alarm prevailed at another visit from 
the Sioux Indians. It was evident that they 
were driven on our soil by the United States 



GENERAL EVENTS DURING i860— 1868. 159 

troops, and we were in constant fear of a 
massacre from them. 

Much excitement was caused by the dissolu- 
tion of partnership in the firm of McKennay & 
Co. The half-brothers were at each other's 
throats in the quarterly court. Dr. Schultz, our 
doctor-editor, was always in the law-courts. 
Now he claimed ;3r300, and accused the 
Company bitterly of injustice because it was 
refused him. The worthy doctor seemed to have 
registered a vow to smash Charles II.'s "worth- 
less charter " to atoms. It was evident enough 
to all who cared to watch him carefully that he 
had come to the colony with a genuine heart 
and disposition to do good for it, but he was 
filled with the frenzied ambition of youth, and 
feeling conscious of a grievance, his revenge 
expressed itself in a tempest of hatred and fury 
against the Company. I asked him once why 
he was so fond of airing his grievances in the 
law-courts ; was it by way of advertisement ? 
*' No," he said; *' it is because I have them, 
and shall continue to have them until the 
country is better ruled." I advised him to stick 
to his grievances ; few of us can be happy with- 
out them. The jury decided against his claim, 
however, and Dr. Schultz described the court 
as having been '' bullied and browbeaten by 



i6o THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

the defendants, so that it had neither the will 
nor the power to do justice." 

About this time an unfortunate affair occurred 
at Fort Rae, on the Mackenzie River, two 
thousand miles away. A shipmate of mine, 
W. T. Smith, was accused of having shot one 
of his men, whether accidentally or not could 
not be determined, as no witnesses had been 
present. Some domestic jealousy had existed, 
and this, along with an attempt of Smith's to 
cast the blame on some innocent Indians, led 
to his being tied with cords and brought to the 
fort. He was formally tried, but, the evidence 
being found insufficient, he was allowed to leave 
the country. But such incidents provided a 
text for those whose aim it was to cast discredit 
on the Company's government. 

The lake fisheries turned out well this 
autumn, but the buffalo hunt was a complete 
failure, owing to the presence of the Indian 
refugees on the hunting grounds. The result 
was a great scarcity of food, especially among 
the French-Canadian half-breeds, who lived 
chiefly on pemmican, dried meat, etc., and 
trusted much to the buffalo hunt. 

Excitement arose in autumn over a rumour 
that gold existed in paying quantities about 
Vermilion Lake, in Minnesota. Nothing 



GENERAL EVENTS DURING i860— iS68. 161 

further was reported, however, than '' surface 
indications." Many of the young settlers were 
anxious to proceed to these diggings, but they 
soon found out that the only accessible route 
was both circuitous and very difficult, so that 
the scheme for emigration to Vermilion Lake 
from the Red River soon fell to the ground. 

1866. 

Skirmishes with and among Indians provided 
interest for 1866. Three respectable American 
citizens carrying on business at the Prairie 
Portage were cruelly attacked by a band of 
Salteaux Indians. The red men demanded 
liquor of them, and being refused, proceeded 
to carry off some buffalo robes that lay in the 
store. The Americans, whose names were 
Salmon, Clewitt, and O'Lone, defended their 
property with clubs, and beat off the Indians. 
They soon returned, however, armed with 
guns, and when one of the white men came 
out of the store an Indian placed the muzzle 
of his gun against his breast and fired. 
Another was cruelly cut down with the scalp- 
ing knife, seeing which his partner fired on the 
Indians, killing one on the vSpot. The Indians 
then retired into the bush, firing as they went. 

An unfortunate stabbing affray also took 

S.K. M 



i62 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

place in the fort, in which a Salteaux Indian 
was killed. His assailant, a French half-breed, 
was banished to New Caledonia. 

The Sioux chief '^ Standing Buffalo" sent 
a band of his fellows to the fort for provisions, 
and also to ask advice as to the probability of 
their being allowed to return to their old 
hunting grounds. Having received both food 
and counsel, the wild Minnesota murderers 
returned highly pleased. A few miles on their 
journey they were attacked by a band of 
Chippewayans. Four were shot, and the rest 
fled for their lives, and only escaped through 
the protection of a band of brave settlers who 
had seen the skirmish. 

About this time the ever-to-be-remembered 
Thomas Spence arrived upon the scene, with 
no smaller a task before him than our annexa- 
tion to the United States of America. Finding 
this beyond him, he went sixty miles west, and 
began drawing the boundary lines of a new 
province he thought of forming, meanwhile 
demanding duties of all merchandise entering 
his domain. By-and-by there entered his mind 
the happy thought of writing an invitation to 
his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to pay 
the colony a visit, also to the Duke of Bucking- 
ham and Chandos, then Secretary of State for 



GENERAL EVENTS DURING i860— 1868. 163 

Foreign Affairs, asking his advice on state 
matters relative to the new undertaking, and 
signing himself President of the Council. His 
meteor flight was soon over, however, and we 
heard of him trying to make a living at Salt 
Springs, near Manitoba. 

1867. 

Again the locusts arrived in their hosts, 
clearing the ground of grass, vegetables, grain, 
nay, of every green and growing thing ; and 
again we had a glimpse of the great world in 
a visit of the Earl of March and E. Hill, Esq., 
who stopped to secure native servants and 
necessary apparatus before setting out buffalo 
and bear hunting in the Saskatchewan valley. 

Meanwhile Sheriff McKennay's nucleus of 
a village had been extending, and nov/ a cluster 
of houses grouped themselves upon the plain, 
looking rather like a colony of seals with their 
young reposing on an ice floe. No village 
vStreet was there, no road, except the old cart 
track that leads only to the Rocky Mountains, 
a thousand miles away. But as the village 
grew the ideas of the inhabitants expanded 
likewise, so that when a Dutchman of the 
name of Emmerling established the first billiard 
table, an importation from the land of Uncle 

M 2 



i64 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

Sam, it need hardly be said how well the 
investment paid. Then followed the establish- 
ment of a Burns club, if I mistake not by the 
same man, and the members of the club met, 
of course, at a dinner on St. Andrew's Day. 
Unfortunately, an altercation arose as to the 
comparative excellence of highlands and 
lowlands in Scotland, and soon the festive 
gathering became a riot. At that time there 
was only one constable in the entire colony. 
His name was Mulligan, but which side he 
favoured during the fight I cannot say. 

The steamer International was busy all this 
summer in fetching up goods from the United 
States, chiefly the property of private individuals 
anxious to speculate a little in fur trading 
before the Company's charter quite ceased to 
exist. Evidently the Nor' -Wester had its 
public, if not in the colony, in the vast domains 
of our wealthy neighbours. These traders 
made the village on the plain their head- 
quarters, and there drew up plans for invading 
our territory north, east, and west, as if the old 
days of the rival companies had returned upon 
us again, All our powers could not prevent 
these intruders from forcing their way into the 
very heart of the fur country. All we could do 
was to follow them up, and this we did most 



GENERAL EVENTS DURING i860— 1868. 165 

closely, though aware that the conditions of fur 
trading were being altered in spite of us. I was 
appointed sleuth-hound to follow the invaders 
on the east and west shores of Lake Winnipeg. 
My instructions were on no account to leave 
my quarry, two of the best Americans that 
ever lived, but to follow them everywhere and 
watch everything they did. In a log shanty, 
with a mud chimney in one corner, within 
sight of both parties, I made my preparations 
for the winter. I had a full complement of 
native runners, eighty Eskimo dogs, thirty 
thousand whitefish on spits, and six puncheons 
of Demerara rum warranted to kill at thirty 
roods, and with the first snow and ice in 
November I set out on the chase which was 
to last till the following May. The Americans 
were very friendly, and took it all in good part. 
One of them remarked to me one day, " This 
year we have bought out Russia's claim on 
the continent [Alaska] , and we wouldn't miss 
it out of our pockets to buy you out too." 

1868. 

The year 1868 offered a fresh and vivid 

chapter in the history of that stirring and 

irrepressible individual Dr. Schultz. It was 

solely with a view to curbing the political 



i66 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

prancing of this descendant of the Vikings 
that Governor McTavish had appointed Mr. 
McKennay sheriff. But it was not easy to 
control a man so precocious, so overflowing 
with Hfe and energy. He was at home in 
every detail of the country's history, though 
in other respects his education was far from 
complete, notwithstanding the efforts of an 
Irish tutor whom some wave of circumstance 
had pitched into our midst. It was this tutor 
who in a phrase described the man : " Fate 
had manufactured a scoundrel out of material 
meant by Nature for a gentleman." He was 
now prosecuted by a London firm for a debt 
of £S00j in connection with which so many 
damaging facts came to light that the Governor 
paid ;f2g6 out of his private purse to put an 
end to the matter. Truly he was a man 
v/ithout the most elementary conception of 
law and order. When his goods arrived he 
took personal oversight of their landing, and 
saw them safe within his store without paying 
duty ; and when his brother the sheriff went 
next day to put execution on them, he not 
only abused him, but knocked the officer of 
the law about so ignominiously that he was 
glad to escape, and this notwithstanding the 
fact that the court had made out a civil 



GENERAL EVENTS DURING i860— 1868. 167 

case against him. He was put in prison, but 
only to break out by the help of an oaken 
beam, which he used as a battering-ram, 
after which all that was left for him to do 
was to issue an ''extra" of the No/ -Wester 
celebrating his triumphant re-entry into liberty. 
It was a miserable episode, yet the man was in 
his way unique. He had pluck, perseverance, 
an indomitable spirit, and an unflinching faith 
in his own purposes. 

The life of the colony was no doubt some- 
what lawless. Shootings and murders were 
common, and the criminal received little or 
no punishment. But it was scarcely to be 
wondered at in an isolated district with no 
vestige of military authority, with but one 
policeman, and a frail wooden courthouse, 
which also served as gaol. The people were 
used to shootings and vStabbings, and any 
attempt at adequate punishment would have 
failed utterly for lack of the support of public 
opinion, while the free-and-easy life had to 
such an extent become second nature that at 
any moment death would be preferred to 
confinement. 

For the rest, a memorable hurricane, which 
destroyed much property and several lives, and 
another destructive descent of locusts, marked 



168 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

the year. There was again a threatening of 
famine owing to the failure of the buffalo hunt, 
and the Governor and Council of Assiniboia 
collected £7^300 as a relief fund. Of this 
;f3,ooo came from England, $600 from Canada, 
and ;f900 from the United States, while the 
Company's house in London devoted ;;/^2,ooo 
to the same purpose. 

Two American visitors we had, of widely 
differing ranks, but perhaps equally well 
known. The first was General R. B. Marcy, 
of the United States army, who paid a flying 
visit to Lake Winnipeg. He was Inspector- 
General of the North-Western Department, 
and was on his annual tour of inspection to 
posts within that circuit. He left us highly 
pleased with his reception. 

Our other visitor was no less distinguished 
a person than Professor Sands, ''the world- 
renowned magician and ventriloquist," who 
stabbed himself enthusiastically in the arm, 
and cheerfully invited anybody and everybody 
to discharge loaded pistols at his heart, all to 
the huge amazement of the unsophisticated 
settlers, who crowded the room to suffocation. 

The winter was long and dreary, and I was 
again on duty as sleuth-hound. A monotonous 
task I found it, and the recollection of it is 



GENERAL EVENTS DURING i860— 1868. i6g 

like a nightmare of weariness, a whitefish 
boiled for breakfast, a whitefish roasted for 
dinner, a whitefish boiled for supper, straight 
on day after day for months, and nothing else 
happening. Let the reader fancy himself in 
the position, and form his own opinion. I 
have no wish to describe it. Yet I found 
some consolation in the marvellous scenes of 
winter beauty which I was privileged to see. 
These I rejoice still to remember. As far as 
my immediate business was concerned, the 
outlook was discouraging, for the introduction 
of the American steel trap seemed for a time 
to threaten the fur-bearing animals with 
extermination — an exaggerated fear, however, 
as the event has proved. 



CHAPTER IX. 

END OF THE CHARTER. 
1869. 

The year i86g saw the end of my Company's 
charter. This conclusion, as I have ah'eady 
indicated, had been in sight for some time, 
but, as usually happens, a single incident not 
specially startling in itself brought matters to 
a climax. 

Early in the year two Red Lake Indians 
stopped at a tent inhabited by two women and 
four children of the Sioux tribe. They were 
hospitably received, and the household retired 
for the night without suspicion of harm. In 
the dead of night, however, the guests arose 
and murdered the whole family in cold blood, 
carrying off their scalps to exhibit in pride 
to their tribe. The affair attracted a great 
amount of attention, and confirmed the fast- 
growing opinion among the people that it was 
time some change was made in the method of 
government. 



END OF THE CHARTER. 171 

Meanwhile MeSvSrs. Cartier and McDougall, 
two Canadian politicians, had been in England 
endeavouring to make some arrangement by 
which the territories hitherto under the control 
of my Company might become part of the 
Dominion of Canada. The Governor of 
Rupert's Land had also gone on the same 
errand. 

The general impression now, however, was 
that the Company had done its work. Cer- 
tainly I know of my own knowledge that the 
difficulties of governing had during the last 
five years become altogether insuperable. And 
whatever errors the Company may have com- 
mitted during the tv/o hundred years of its 
charter, no fair-minded person will deny the 
sincerity of its efforts for the good of the 
people. The natives of all tribes and dialects 
were kindly treated and kept in at least tole- 
rable order. The Company sent the first white 
settlers to the country, and by these it was 
gradually developed. Notwithstanding the 
difficult climate and isolated position, routes 
were made by which its plentiful yield of furs 
could be exported, and thus the whole region 
was gradually opened up, with what result the 
world now knows. The Selkirk colony took 
root and grew under the Company's protection, 



172 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

through it the gospel was preached among the 
savage tribes, and but for its long-continued 
sway the whole territory would as likely as not 
have fallen into the lap of the United Stafes. 

Indeed, I think I may claim that the Com- 
pany has left a wonderful record behind it. 
This company of pioneers trading into Hudson's 
Bay saw and survived the decline and fall 
of French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, and 
Portuguese in the Western Hemisphere. Its 
chief officers, I am proud to say, have been 
nearly all Highlanders, and a hearty tribute 
must be paid to the courage and endurance 
and undaunted enterprise of the men v/ho 
have gained for the Company its unique place 
in the annals of British commerce. Its methods 
had advantages over those pursued in India, 
won also by Scotsmen. Clive and those who 
followed him by the aid of disciplined soldiers 
scattered and controlled the natives. No vSuch 
method obtained with us. The relations with the 
Indians were always friendly; moral strength, 
and not physical force, was their motto. 
Our contest was with the forces of Nature : 
immense distances; isolation; the cruel severity 
of Arctic blasts. Living was rough, and food 
sometimes scarce enough. Even for tobacco, 
no less indispensable than food, an unsatis- 



END OF THE CHARTER. 173 

factory substitute had often to be found in 
birch bark or the insipid leaves of a shrub 
which only tantalised by provoking painful 
comparison. Often we were snowed up for 
months within the narrow limits of a fort, or 
set out to shoot big game with — shall I say ? — • 
the frozen mercury extracted from the bulb of 
the thermometer. Yet, surviving all difficulties 
for two full centuries, my Company preserved 
its influence and power to the end, and during 
the kvSt year of its existence had 160 forts and 
posts, 60 chief factors and chief traders, 160 
clerks, and 1,500 inferior servants. 

Some of the earlier rulers of the Company 
deserve to rank among the really great states- 
men — a position unfortunately that history shall 
never give them, so little is the magnitude of 
their work guessed at. A few names have won 
the recognition they deserve for the singleness 
of purpose, the zeal, the far-sightedness with 
which they have devoted themselves to the 
cause of the settlers and the natives. Chief 
among these is Mr. D. A. Smith (now Lord 
Strathcona), who has honoured me by accepting 
the dedication of these fragmentary recollec- 
tions. As financier, diplomatist, and statesman, 
he stands first among our rulers. His unas- 
suming manners won the affection of those 



174 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

about him, and his force and earnestness as a 
public speaker impressed those views upon his 
audience as effectively as any more pretentious 
eloquence. And perhaps I may be excused if 
in speaking of him I recall the soil from which 
I too spring. He is a Scot of the Scots, a 
true and admirable type of the old-fashioned, 
chivalrous Scottish gentleman. 

The charter, however, was doomed, and the 
most honourable and third oldest corporation 
that the world has seen came to an end. That 
it had held out against forcible opposition from 
influential quarters may be easily seen from 
the following extracts. When Lord Palmer- 
ston in 1858 introduced the Bill for the transfer 
of the government of India from the East 
India Company to the Crown, he referred to 
the Hudson's Bay Company's territory, con- 
cerning which a Select Committee had the 
previous year drawn up a report in these 
terms : '^ One could easily imagine that a 
wilderness in the northern part of America 
where nothing lives except fur-bearing animals 
and a few wild Indians might be confided to a 
company whose chief function should be to 
strip the running animals of their furs and to 
keep the bipeds sober," showing, of course, 
that in India the case was different. In the 



END OF THE CHARTER. 175 

same session Mr. Gladstone spoke with greater 
directness and even greater severity. '' There 
is," he said, " a large portion of the surface of 
the earth with regard to the character of which 
we have been systematically kept in darkness, 
for those who had information to give have 
also had an interest directly opposed to im- 
parting it. Now the truth is beyond question 
that a great part of this country is highly 
valuable for colonisation purposes, and it is 
impossible to state in too strong language the 
proposition that the Hudson's Bay Company 
is by its very existence and its character the 
enemy of colonisation." Apparently Lord 
Palmerston thought the matter of slight im- 
portance ; Mr. Gladstone thought it of much, 
and proved himself the more far-seeing of the 
two. Yet I am scarcely prepared to admit 
that he was altogether right, though perhaps 
his position* became true as circumstances 
developed, and the lapse of the charter finally 
became inevitable. 

There were troublous times in store for us, 
however, before matters were settled. On 23rd 
September I received a hurried summons to 
headquarters, where I v/as instructed to start 
at once for Point de Chene under sealed orders, 
and test the feeling of the French half-breed 



176 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

colony there. This I did, even changing my 
faith as soon as I reached my destination, and 
attending for the first time in my Hfe the 
Roman CathoHc church. There was Httle 
need for any such diplomatic perversion, 
however, for it was at once evident that the 
Company had ceased to be a power in the 
colony. The feeling of the people was not 
meiely indifferent, but hostile, partly no doubt 
owing to the influence of the rush of strangers 
into the country, bringing with them the latest 
democratic ideas. I proceeded unmolested, 
however, to my further task of staking out 
land at the west end of the " Dawson Road," 
and marking on the posts " H.B. Coy.'s Land 
Claims." In the course of my journey I camped 
at St. Boniface, and there met Louis Riel. He 
was a fair type of his race, spare, with black hair 
and blue eyes, neither scrupulously clean nor 
well dressed. He spoke fluently in Cree, 
French, and English, the last with much of 
the accent of the others, and had a noble 
taste in Demerara rum. 

The arrival of the Hon. Joseph Howe, a 
prominent member of the Canadian Parlia- 
ment, caused indirectly some disaffection 
among the natives. A few Canadians who 
had entered the colony as surveyors gathered 



END OF THE CHARTER. 177 

about him, calling themselves '*the Canadian 
party," and even after Mr. Howe had left 
Messrs. Snow and Mair, with the less enthusi- 
astic Mr. J. S. Dennis, maintained the party, 
which we felt to be a somewhat dangerous 
combination. The natives had fancied the 
territory, including themselves, had been sold, 
and the more intelligent among them resented 
this as "worse than slavery." Careful and 
generous treatment, however, helped to prevent 
any risk of insurrection. 

Meanwhile a series of petitions were written 
to England and Canada asking for a change 
of government. Some pled for annexation 
to Canada, some to the United States, some 
to England. But before anything could be 
done the chartered rights of the Company had 
to be formally surrendered to the British 
Government, in compensation for which they 
were to receive ;f300,ooo and one-twentieth 
of the land. Some people thought this sum 
enormous, though it was a mere fraction of what 
the land by-and-by sold for ; others declared 
that the Company had no legal right to either 
land or money, surely an absurd contention. 

The day for the transfer was ist Decem- 
ber, 1869. Unfortunately, long before this 
date arrived Mr. McDougall, who had been 

S.K. N 



178 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

conducting the negotiations In England, was 
appointed at Ottawa to be supreme ruler of 
the colony. The people opposed him, refused 
him entrance, and, instead of making a trium- 
phant entry, he found himself ignored, slighted, 
and repulsed, while the Nor' -Wester poured 
forth daily streams of vituperation, all directed 
against my unfortunate Company. 

Early in November, my friend Louis Riel 
made his appearance at Fort Garry with one 
hundred men. To the inquiry of Mr. Cowan, 
the superintendent, regarding the nature of 
their visit, they repHed, '' To protect the fort." 
In vain did Mr. Cowan protest against being 
compelled to billet so many men inside the 
fort. Then followed public notices, proclama- 
tions, protests, from all quarters: Riel, Schultz, 
Snow, and Mair (the ''friends of Canada"), 
and from McDougall, who by this time was 
in the United States. Meanwhile Riel had 
extended his guards to the town, patrolling 
its muddy streets, and by the 23rd the insur- 
gents had grown so strong that they made 
Governor McTavish and Mr. Cowan prisoners 
in their own fort, and took possession of the 
Company's books and papers in their charge. 
A Major Wallace, a Scotsman, arrived from 
Mr. McDougall, but was ignominiously stripped 



END OF THE CHARTER. 179 

of his arms, and sent back to his master. 
The year ended with the issuing of proclama- 
tions, of very questionable authority, by J. S. 
Dennis, surveyor, who signed himself" Deputy 
Governor and Conservator of the Peace." 

There can be no doubt that the conduct of 
affairs during these weeks was not such as to 
pacify the natives or to lead to an amicable 
settlement. The reason that prompted Mr. 
McDougall to approach the frontier when he 
did is a mystery. The move had a most 
irritating effect. And, as Governor, McTavish 
must surely have foreseen Kiel's movement, 
or at all events expected, as I certainly did, 
that the half-breeds would have recourse to 
arms. Why had he not in Fort Garry a force 
equal to any emergency ? In so acting he 
would not have been doing anything but what 
might have been done with the full approval 
of the Imperial and Canadian Governments, 
and he would have prevented the rumour, soon 
widespread in the country, that he was a con- 
senting party to Kiel's attack. It was no doubt 
unreasonable to hold him responsible for events 
that had happened during his serious three 
months' illness, but popular opinion is apt to 
be unreasonable, and in any case the captain 
of the ship is responsible for her course and her 

N 2 



i8o THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

fate. Had it been possible to reconcile the 
English and French half-breeds, the influence 
of the '' Canadian party" would have been done 
for, and that of itself would have been sufficient 
to secure peace. This party was eager for war, 
and Surveyor Dennis and his friends were busy 
drilling the Swampy Indians in the stone fort. 
After a few months, however, the drilling ceased, 
the French provisional flag appeared on the 
walls of Fort Garry, and our soi-disant *' Deputy 
Governor," after inditing a letter to Riel 
recommending speedy unconditional surrender, 
and expressing trust in that gentleman's 
*' honour " — of which he had, alas ! none — sud- 
denly disappeared from view. Both he and 
Mr. McDougall, when all diplomatic ingenuity 
had failed, returned through deep snow to 
Ottawa. Riel and his comrade O'Donoghue 
pursued their schemes, and on their demand 
for the loan of a sum of money from Mr. 
McTavish being refused helped themselves 
by carrying off the safe, taking the keys from 
the accountant by force. 

But salvation was at hand, though we knew 
it not, for in December I got an urgent letter 
bidding me send my two best dog teams, 
sledges, and drivers to the upper fort, that 
they might be sent with others to Georgetown 



END OF THE CHARTER. i8i 

to meet and escort to the colony Mr. D. A. 
Smith (ah'eady referred to), one of the Com- 
pany's own officers, who was coming as a 
special commissioner from the Government 
to restore peace in the country. He arrived 
on 27th December, two days after the other 
special commissioners from Ottawa, the Grand 
Vicar Thibault and Colonel de Salaberry. 
These gentlemen found us all in much excite- 
ment over the rumoured approach of ten 
thousand Sioux warriors, coming from the 
west to attack us. There was a saying, 
"Scratch a Sioux Indian, and you discover 
what an American savage is," so that our 
alarm was considerable. But, by the timely 
representations of a Scotch half-breed, they 
were induced to turn back, thus ending the 
last Indian scare under the Company's govern- 
ment. This man was accused by the Americans 
of having made much profit out of these Sioux 
Indians by purchasing from them gold dust 
and other wealth, the booty of the families 
murdered in 1861-2. 

There seemed little prospect of my idea of 
reconciling the Scotch and French half-breeds 
being carried out. The "Canadian party" 
was for the moment in high favour with the 
English section, and their influence continually 



i82 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

widened the breach between the other two 
groups. Canada was discovering a new world, 
which would revolutionise its affairs, but this 
*' Canadian party " was scarcely a wise or effec- 
tive instrument in dealing with the situation. 
For they were masterful, if not abusive, and 
imagined to be belonging to a class that relieved 
them from the necessity of being just towards 
the natives, whom they took to be nothing ! 

1870. 

The first meeting of the commissioners, 
held at Fort Garry under Kiel's presidency, 
was attended by many of our ablest men, of 
all shades of opinion. Happily the questions 
at issue stood apart from those of ordinary 
politics, and one could not but feel that, what- 
ever the actual result of the conference might 
be, its influence would go towards uniting 
the sympathies of the colonists with the 
Canadians, and help to produce a spirit of 
cordial co-operation in the task of developing the 
practically unlimited possibilities of the country. 
The conference was watched with interest and 
sympathy both in Ottawa and in London. 
** Let there only be an indication on both 
sides that a genuine effort is being made to 
come to a good understanding," said a pro- 



END OF THE CHARTER. 183 

minent colonist to me, " and all will end well.'* 
The nomination of three such men as the Grand 
Vicar, Colonel de Salaberry, and Mr. D. A. 
Smith, as representatives of Canada, was in 
itself a proof that the Government appreciated 
the importance of the situation. Each and 
all of the parties were agreed that Mr. D. A. 
Smith's tone throughout was friendly, calm, 
and dispassionate. His effort to secure the 
fullest measure of friendly intercourse between 
the natives and Canada, subject only to the 
claims of Imperial authority, was a statesman- 
like action the more surprising in a man who 
had spent most of his life isolated among the 
dreary rocks of Labrador. His masterly grasp 
of the situation was shown most completely at 
the mass meeting at Fort Garry in January, 
when he had the opportunity of expounding 
his views and plans. It was a critical moment, 
and when he rose to unfold his commission 
from Sir John Young before Riel, O'Donoghue, 
and other insurrectionaries, most of us expected 
to see him arrested, or even shot. Indeed, he 
was virtually a prisoner, and Riel himself had 
kept a sharp eye on all his correspondence. 
But his marvellous coolness and self-possession 
impressed the hot-headed natives and convinced 
them that their interests would be safe with 



i84 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

Canada. As his last resort, Riel charged him 
with being a Company man. It was true, 
but Mr. Smith at once offered to sever his con- 
nection with the Company if that would tend 
to a peaceful settlement of the vexed questions. 
But Riel, tactless and uncultured, had lost his 
influence, and Mr. Smith was master of the 
situation. He bore the chief part in the dis- 
cussion regarding the Bill of Rights which 
was to be sent to Canada, and his coolness 
and Scotch sagacity alone prevented the col- 
lapse of the negotiations. At one stage 
O'Donoghue said to a supporter, '' This man 
Smith knows too much for us. We must get 
rid of him, or the North- West cannot be either 
an independent republic or even a part of the 
United States. He is a friend of the half- 
breeds, and will be able to persuade them that 
union with Canada is to their interest," of 
which indeed he did persuade them very juvStly. 
I told a friend then he deserved a peerage 
and would win it some day, as he will. 

It was understood that a very special desire 
had been expressed at Ottawa that Mr. Smith 
should take part in the commission, as he was 
known to be an expert in the subjects likely 
to be most prominent, as well as to be very 
thoroughly acquainted with the character of 



END OF THE CHARTER. 185 

the natives. But, do what he might, the 
** Canadian party " gave trouble, and January 
ended in wrangling, petitioning, free fighting, 
and Heaven knows what. Riel incurred the 
hatred of the '* party " by persistently shutting 
them out from his counsels ; and their intrigues, 
under the leadership of the untiring Dr. Schultz, 
became every day more daring and dangerous. 
Riel knew his rival's pavSt history among us, 
and how by sheer physical bulk and some 
shrewdness he had bullied the Company and 
its law-courts for some eight years. So, 
rightly or wrongly, he and his "party" had 
him taken prisoner and lodged within the walls 
of Fort Garry, but in vain, for during the 
night he climbed the wall, and was again at 
large, saving Kiel's credit for the time, for 
it was reported that that unscrupulous leader 
intended to have his blood. Being at liberty, 
he at once set about inciting the people to 
violence, and was so far successful, that even 
from the far-off portage La Prairie recruits 
crowded to his rendezvous in Kildonan church. 
But shrewdly foreseeing consequences, he re- 
fused to accept the responsibility of controlling 
these misguided people who had gathered at 
his call — a heterogeneous collection of Cana- 
dians, Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Dutch, 



i86 THE FATHER 6f ST. KILDA. 

Germans, English, and Scotch, and their half- 
breeds, as well as representatives of three 
distinct Indian races: Crees, Salteaux, and 
Ojibways. Thus, leaderless, purposeless, 
shelterless (the thermometer stood at 55*" below 
zero), the warlike camp, under the influence 
of intense frost and intenser fear, disappeared 
with extraordinary rapidity, vanishing in every 
direction except that which led to Kiel's quar- 
ters in Fort Garry, eight miles ofl". They had 
one very ancient piece of artillery with them, 
which they left behind them ingloriously in 
their flight. Many of these brave soldiers 
scarcely stopped running till they had put the 
whole length of Lake Winnipeg, some three 
hundred miles, between them and their foe. 
Dr. Schultz himself cast not a glance over 
his shoulder till he was safe in Ottawa. And 
all this although Louis Riel had never moved 
from Fort Garry ! The casualties at this 
extraordinary battle that never was fought 
were two in number, a couple of youths, 
Parisien and Sutherland, being killed. But 
for their deaths the whole thing would have 
been merely ludicrous. 

It had a serious sequel, however, for Riel 
secured as prisoners some eighty of Schultz's 
soldiers and kept them in durance vile under 



END OF THE CHARTER. 187 

daily threats of death. Schultz having escaped, 
he looked for a scapegoat to take his place. 
One day, in some mood of folly — to regard 
the matter merely as a piece of policy — he took 
his revenge on the " Canadian party" by order- 
ing out one Thomas Scott, a fine - looking 
young Scotch-Canadian, and having him taken 
outside the fort, blindfolded, and shot down 
in cold blood by six bullets without even the 
apology for a trial. It was a huge blunder. 
The colony was aghast. Riel had reached the 
highest point, and his rash, inhuman act paved 
the way for his descent. His subsequent rela- 
tions with his soldiers were those of the tyrant 
shorn of power. They undertook to do what- 
ever he told them ; he told them to do whatever 
they liked. 

To strengthen his hands to some extent, 
he started a newspaper called The New Nation^ 
but it was only too clear that his fighting 
powers were at an end. He was a super- 
stitious man, and declared that his luck left 
him when he shot Scott. Certainly it was 
then that his star began to pale. He was a 
man of strange and contradictory impulses ; 
and, free from the ordinary restraints of society, 
he found in his own nature neither ballast nor 
control. He was utterly unstable ; the mortal 



i88 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

enemy of the morning might be the trusted 
ally of the night. Scheme after scheme formed 
itself in his restless brain, each in turn pressed 
with enthusiasm, each in turn rejected with 
disdain. Much drinking and smoking had 
irreparably injured a temperament naturally 
highly nervous, and these habits grew upon 
him till he could not live without them. His 
moods became more and more capricious and 
uncertain, his passion more violent and un- 
reasonable, his impulses more sudden and 
inconsistent. The last scene in the vivid 
drama of his connection with us soon came. 
In May Lieutenant W. F. Butler arrived, 
having made, by Colonel Wolseley's orders, 
a flank movement through the States. In 
his honour the Salteaux gave a big ** pow- 
wow," the chief men present being Musk-koo- 
ann-ee, Namba or Sturgeon, Red Deer, Big 
Apron, Grey Eyes, Long Claws, and Big 
Bird. A few days later the gallant captain 
was furnished by us with men, provisions, 
and a large canoe, and started on his journey 
down the Red River, across Lake Winnipeg, 
and up the Rainy River to meet and report 
to the commander of the Red River expe- 
ditionary force. This force entered Fort 
Garry on the 24th without opposition. Riel 



END OF THE CHARTER. 189 

retreated to St. Boniface and thence to the 
United States. His soldiers and supporters 
vanished Hke snow in June, after having with 
their chief '' enjoyed " in our fort nearly a year 
ol continuous debauch. This was Kiel's final 
exit from the stage of the Company's affairs. 
He appeared again years after in the midst 
of another political crisis, but I relate only 
what I myself was concerned in. After enjoy- 
ing the Company's hospitality for a short time. 
Colonel Wolseley retraced his steps with his 
battalion of the 60th Rifles, leaving two bat- 
talions of Canadian Volunteers, one in each of 
our forts, to protect us alike from Riel and 
from Indian scares. 

Now arrived Mr. Archibald, the newly 
appointed Governor. Coming as he did at the 
right time, and suitably preceded or escorted 
by military force, he received a hearty welcome, 
very different from the reception accorded to 
Mr. McDougall. He and his friend Mr. Dennis 
showed a lack of tact and of diplomacy in 
attempting to claim a position which would 
obviously be denied or grudged by the people. 
They should have seen that such an action 
would merely intensify ill-feeling, and that the 
crisis was emphatically one of those when 
nothing but an exhibition of Imperial military 



igo THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

force can preserve peace. The so-called 
** Canadian party " was by this time so weak- 
ened in numbers as to be powerless. Happily 
the time has long come when there is the 
fullest sympathy in Canada with Imperial policy 
and aims. It is unfair to blame my Company 
for the disturbances. The land had ceased to 
be theirs since the transfer, and their control 
was consequently weakened, and nominally, 
indeed, at an end. The mistake, it has always 
seemed to me, lay with the authorities at Ottawa 
in neglecting to consult the people who were 
to be affected by the change. It was precisely 
here that Mr. D. A. Smith showed the wisdom 
and grasp of affairs which in reality saved 
the situation and brought the matter to a 
satisfactory issue. 

Early in the year, in fact on 17th May, my 
friend Governor McTavish had left the colony 
for ever, broken down in health, and worn 
beyond recognition by the troubles he had 
encountered. He was emphatically a man 
sans peiir et sans reproche, a man whose name 
was accepted everywhere as a synonym for 
disinterested integrity. 

He died immediately on his arrival in Liver- 
pool, to the sorrow of all who had known or 
served under him. Adieu, William the Just! 



CHAPTER X. 

TWO YEARS ON THE SASKATCHEWAN PRAIRIES. 

Apparently I was born to rove, and, these 
stirring events over, I gathered my belongings 
together and set out for the great prairies of 
the west. " You are going to have the great 
sensation of your Hfe," said a friend as he 
bade me farewell, and indeed it proved a true 
prophecy. For the first night alone on the 
limitless prairie is an experience never to be 
forgotten by any man of imagination or feeling. 
But of that anon. I had a few preliminary 
miles to travel. My outfit consisted of a horse 
and buggy, two guns, ammunition, a blanket, 
a few pounds of flour, tea, and salt. My steady 
horse, well named '' Rock," deserves a word to 
himself, for a faithful and affectionate companion 
he proved himself during two lonely years in 
the wilderness. He was brown and of ordinary 
height. His chief peculiarities were the depth 
of his chest and his large belly, excellent fea- 
tures in view of the work in store for him. 
He trotted delightfully ten miles an hour, and 



192 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

V 

walked slowly, and was most docile. His eyes 
were hazel, the most beautiful I have ever seen. 
With a last look at the white walls of the stone 
fort where I had spent so many stirring years, 
I turned my horse's head towards Winnipeg, 
a town now getting notorious for its gambling 
houses and drinking saloons, two of which 
were kept by outlawed desperadoes from the 
States. Rowdyism was rampant, there being 
in the town a great number of youths from 
Ontario, who came with great expectations, but 
little inchnation to hard work. To send such 
youths alone to a new country is merely a 
species of moral murder. The bulk of them 
never got further than the saloons or " Brown's 
Bridge," where they sat sulkily all day, dan- 
gling their legs over the parapet, and surveying 
their own unprepossessing reflections in the 
water. These are the men who do harm to a 
new country by sending home bad accounts of 
it, when they have really only themselves to 
blame. Then they become " remittance men," 
screwing money out of their people at home. 
I remember one of these who persuaded the 
saloon-keeper to write to the long-suffering 
father telling him his son was dead, and asking 
him to send on money for the funeral. The 
father, probably only too glad, forwarded the 



THE SASKATCHEWAN PRAIRIES. 193 

required sum, thanking the writer for the care 
he had taken of his late boy. Shortly after- 
wards another letter from the 'Mate boy" 
arrived, denouncing the former communication 
as fraudulent, and, as usual, asking for money. 
The father, however, answered curtly, that 
having buried his son once, he declined now 
to have anything to do with his ghost. 

But to press on with my journey. The old 
trail followed the left bank of the Assiniboine, 
passing through level land, with here and there 
cultivated fields and patches of woodland. 
Portage La Prairie lay sixty miles from town. 
Beyond it I entered a fine country, low-lying, 
dotted with lakes and marshes, full of wild- 
fowl, and studded with aspen copses. Here 
I saw many buffalo skulls dried by age and 
exposure. At this point the road divided into 
two, the branches, which were called the north 
and south trails, becoming one again many 
miles away beyond Shoal Lake. I took the 
north branch, which brought me to the Little 
Saskatchewan River, a clear stream, the wes- 
tern boundary of the province of Manitoba 
— and of civilisation. A few mounted police 
are stationed there to intercept all spirituous 
liquors, which may not be carried beyond this 
point without a Government ''permit." 

S.K. O 



194 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. » 

Here I entered the void, calm, waveless, 
prairie-ocean, and felt as never before what 
it meant to be alone. The evening was beauti- 
fully fine ; not a breath of wind was stirring ; 
the sky was deeply tinged with gold, and the 
atmosphere had the light purple hue associated 
with the sunset hour of a serene harvest or 
Indian summer day. The last traces of hus- 
bandry had been long left behind. Not a 
glimpse was now to be had of the wooded lands 
by which I had so long been shut in. The sun 
appeared a broad flash of glorious crimson 
light, stretching upwards to the zenith, and 
reflected on the small lakes, where waterfowl 
sported and fluttered. In the willow bushes 
and aspen copses birds chirped and sang. The 
scene to me was as new as it was impressive. 
In my boyhood I saw the sun drop beneath the 
waves of the Atlantic. In youth I saw it sink 
behind billowy masses of foliage. Now it went 
down among the undulating waves of prairie 
grass. The stars came out one by one, and 
gradually the colours melted and fused and 
changed till night had come, and all the array 
of planets ranged themselves in the dark blue 
heavens. The night scene when the full moon 
rose was so glorious that it was not possible 
to think at all, merely to lie still and drink 



THE SASKATCHEWAN PRAIRIES. 195 

in sensations of exquisite pleasure. The sun 
appeared in the east before I was weary. 

At early dawn I heard a distant noise, un- 
earthly, weird and horrible, and far across the 
level prairie I saw an approaching train of Red 
River carts. Hundreds of them there were, 
covering miles of the track as they followed 
each other in single file. They were drawn by 
Red River horses and oxen, and some by milch 
cows, Indian ponies, American oxen, mules, an 
ass, and a couple of large donkeys. Horrible 
was the dry creak of the ungreased wooden 
axles. As the procession passed the groaning 
was appalling. Some of the carts were returning 
from the summer plain hunt, others from long 
freighting trips, lasting as long as one hundred 
and fifty days, to Edmonton, Fort Pitt, Green 
Lake, and Fort Carlton, on the Saskatchewan. 
The harness used was exceedingly primitive, 
being made of ox or buffalo hide, raw and 
undressed. 

On learning that I was bound for the Saskat- 
chewan country the wagoners put their hands to 
their mouths — their gesture of dismay — and one 
of them exclaimed, "■ There are so many Sioux 
Indians alongyourpath. Youwillbekilled sure." 

" Only once," I replied, and drove on into 
the unknown. 

o 2 



196 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

Prairie chicken were abundant along the 
trail, and love of sport, I must admit, some- 
times tempted me to shoot more than my 
extraordinarily vigorous appetite could con- 
sume — three brace being the daily apportion- 
ment. After crossing the Little Saskatchewan 
I could see that the country was gradually 
attaining a greater elevation. Riding Moun- 
tain, running east and west on the north side 
of this plateau, is an excellent natural protection 
from the Arctic winds. The soil is a rich 
black loam, very fertile. I saw in it, as I drove 
along, a future ''garden of the west." Yet 
these lands develop slowly. It was not till the 
end of April, 1871, that the first batch of 
immigrants reached Winnipeg, and though 
many have arrived since then, they too often 
return disgusted with the country and its 
droughts, floods, and pests of grasshoppers 
and locusts. These seem to have been worse 
ever since the year of Kiel's rebellion — worse, 
certainly, than during my years in Fort Garry. 
Yet in one way I regard this as a blessing, 
because it gave the country time to recover 
gradually from its period of unrest. In fact, 
an immediate "boom" in immigration would 
have been a serious embarrassment. It took 
my Company some seven years to secure a cash 



THE SASKATCHEWAN PRAIRIES. 197 

return for its trade in furs. An immigrant 
would, in the then state of the country, have to 
allow four years before he could hope for food 
return from his farm. Happily Nature does 
not work for her own destruction as men and 
nations seem at times to do. Yet if those 
who were ''disgusted with the country" had 
gone on as far as these Saskatchewan 
prairies I think they would have shared my 
enthusiasm. 

The prairies were gay with flowers, even at 
the season of my journey. Across the stretches 
of blue gentianella I saw a solitary Indian tent, 
standing at some distance from the trail. Rock 
saw it too, and wearier than I of the solitude, 
was soon at the door. There I found myself 
warmly greeted by one of my former Salteaux 
Indians, whose nomadic instinct had urged 
him forth, and left him for the moment lodged 
here in the wilderness. He entertained me 
royally, and having hobbled Rock, we 
feasted together on ducks, geese and prairie 
grouse. 

Then off again over the endless prairie, each 
day like the former, yet without monotony. 
Crossing the Assiniboia about three miles 
above Fort Ellis, I left it to the right, and 
travelled for many days still through rich park 



igS THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

land. Game was truly abundant. Lakes and 
pools swarmed with ducks and geese, and the 
prairie grouse filled the copses beside my path 
and covered the trail itself. Touchwood Hill, 
the Great Salt Plain, and the Wolverine Hills 
passed, I encamped at the foot of Spathanaw 
Watchi, a hill well known to travellers on the 
route, with a cross and a lonely grave on the 
top, from which five hundred miles of horizon 
view is obtainable. 

It was late in October when I crossed the 
south branch of the Saskatchewan, here a 
stream of one hundred yards wide, flowing in 
a deep valley, with steep and wooded sides, cut 
into the level, sandy plain. The next day I 
reached Prince Albert's Mission Settlement, 
on the North Saskatchewan. The place is 
heralded by signs of quiet rather than activity. 
A rustic bridal procession was wandering 
vaguely to one of its places of worship as we 
entered the sleepy place, the happy couple 
marching in front. Then the parents of those 
culprits came behind arm in arm, and blushing 
at their position. I had travelled six hundred 
miles, and my steady and never-failing Rock was 
as fresh as when he started. In these regions 
a good horse in summer and good dogs in 
winter are the traveller's greatest boon. 



THE SASKATCHEWAN PRAIRIES, igg 

1875. 
Prince Albert's Settlement stood on the south 
side of the river, on the two lowest levels of 
its terraced bank, below the high slopes which 
long ago confined the stream before it had 
dug its channel so deeply. This North 
Saskatchewan is rather larger than the South 
branch, which joins it some thirty miles further 
on, but its general character and appearance 
are similar. The sources of these mighty 
streams are many hundred miles apart, high 
up among the Rockies, but the rivers have dug 
deep channels (sometimes three hundred feet 
down), and after some nine hundred miles each 
join their muddy waters for the final sweep east- 
ward, through a deep gorge and into Lake 
Winnipeg, thence to reach eventually Hudson 
Bay. Beyond the northern branch is the vast 
forest which stretches right on to the barren 
ground near the Arctic circle. Beyond the 
southern lies the illimitable prairie, extending 
away into the Mississippi Valley. All the river 
lands, as I have said, I found rich and fertile in 
soil, as the luxuriant growth of wild pea-grass 
abundantly showed. As the welcome signs 
of husbandry and semi-civilisation came into 
view I felt that I had reached my winter 
quarters in this vast and silent land. 



ioo THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

Mine host, Mr. A. Campbell, a dear brother, 
who had served the Company for many years, 
is an accomplished Indian linguist. When I 
visited him in his isolated post, he was not 
long married. His wife, nee Miss Mary 
McKay, though a native, claimed descent 
through her Scottish grandfather from the head 
of the clan, Lord Reay. The settlement owed 
its origin to the late Rev. James Nisbet, a 
Presbyterian minister, who had established a 
mission station there in 1865 for the benefit of 
the Indians, and had named it after the late 
Prince Consort. Very soon afterwards many 
famihes, both Scotch and Scotch half-breeds, 
moved v/estwards from the Red River to the 
new settlement. At the time I visited it, 
however, the little Indian mission, set there in 
the wilderness for the ingathering of the 
heathen to Christ, had become so large as to 
include representatives of all the nations of 
Europe in its population. I could hardly 
believe my own ears when I heard the number 
of different dialects and tongues that were 
spoken in this the northernmost settlement on 
the continent (53^ 3' N.). 

'* Pray how did you get so far north, and 
what do you expect to take back when you 
return to the old country ? " I asked of a rather 



THE SASKATCHEWAN PRAIRIES. 201 

untidy Irish itinerant, whom I chanced to find 
basking in the sun. 

'* Sure, your honour, if the North Pole be 
found out to-day, it's plenty of Irish and 
Scotch will be there to-morrow," was his reply. 

As might be expected, the autumn frosts are 
the chief enemy of agriculture in this latitude, 
and the wheat crops occasionally suffer. But 
when the grain escapes the keenness of the 
night air, it is not — at least so far as I examined 
it — a whit behind the best grown in the Red 
River country : indeed it is a trifle heavier, 
with the same golden hue. The community 
had at that time reached the number of a 
thousand souls, and was daily increasing. One 
remarkable thing was that all comers, young 
and old, seemed to be allowed by Nature to 
remain for an indefinite time. In a whole year 
no death had occurred. 

The settlers had adopted the old Red River 
custom of running their lots two miles out from 
the river. Scotch settlers I found taking 
the leading place there as in so many other 
colonies. There seems no question but that 
the Scotch make first-rate colonists. Their 
courage, shrewdness, perseverance and sagacity 
tell with excellent effect in their battle with 
a new soil. 



202 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

In one respect this colony differed greatly 
from that at the Red River. It was conducted 
on strictly temperance principles. This no 
doubt explained the extraordinary health and 
longevity of the community. But it must be 
admitted that the quantity of black Congou tea 
consumed was appalling. It was so strong 
and dense that the spoon might almost have 
stood upright in the cup. And under the 
influence of this decoction a night rarely 
passed without a ball or a wedding being 
announced in the place. The Red River 
custom of ''fiddling and dancing and serving 
the devil" still survived, though under reformed 
conditions, which robbed the double shuflle and 
stamp dance of much of its vigour. 

The community had plenty of wheat in store, 
but for the converting of it into flour they 
depended solely upon one rather Dutch- 
looking windmill which stood upon the river 
bank waiting patiently for days and even 
weeks for a puff of wind to turn its sails and 
give the people bread. But bread or no bread, 
they were ready to dance and be merry. A 
happy, careless life they led, planted there in 
the midst of a great continent, buried some- 
times in five feet of snow, with the ground 
frozen other ^yq feet below it and a wind of 



THE SASKATCHEWAN PRAIRIES. 203 

sixty degrees below zero whistling overhead. 
And the dances went on merrily all the time. 
There were two churches and two schools, 
so that the settlers had a fair choice, not merely 
as to their own special route heavenwards, but 
as to whether their children should learn the 
Catechism of Prayer Book or the Westminster 
Divines. A few years before the time of which 
I write the Church Missionary Society had 
followed the example of the founders of the 
mission and sent an agent here, a Scotchman, 
the Rev. J. McLean, whom I have already 
mentioned. He had been a Presbyterian 
minister, perhaps one of those ambitious Scots 
whose aims even on earth soar high, for he 
ultimately attained the rank of a colonial 
Bishop. He was an erudite man and a notable 
orator — probably the finest in the continent, 
certainly in the Dominion. The Anglican 
Church wasunquestionably to be congratulated 
on the possession of such a man. The Pres- 
byterian minister, the Rev. Hugh McKellar, 
was an earnest, sincere and pious young man, 
with pretensions and no other aim but to preach 
Christ and Him crucified to his flock. One 
consequence, already visible, of the rapid 
growth of the settlement was the disappearance 
of buffalo from the neighbourhood. They 



204 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

4 

used to be found in countless numbers within 
a week's travel from the mission during the 
whole winter. This year we heard that they 
were far afield, in the prairie land between the 
two branches of the river, but far westward 
near the Rockies. Early in spring a party of 
us set out westwards from the mission. We 
were interrupted after the first ten miles, as the 
cart of one of my companions suddenly turned 
topsy-turvy, nearly suffocating the unfortunate 
Indian pony, which, confined by harness and 
shafts, was nearly buried in a mixture of water, 
snow and mud. Drying the load of furs and 
restoring the pony to its normal condition 
delayed us a few days — amid plenty of shooting. 
The lakes were full of ducks and the hillocks 
alive with running or with dancing grouse. 
This curious habit of dancing enabled us to 
secure a good many brace with very little 
trouble, as they are so engrossed in their steps 
that the approach of the hunter is not noticed. 
Every spring they assemble at sunset and sun- 
rise in parties of three or four dozen at some 
favourite spot, generally a rising ground. They 
group themselves opposite each other, open 
their wings, place both feet together and hop 
solemnly back and forward like birds in a 
pantomime. Prairie grouse do not usually hop, 



THE SASKATCHEWAN PRAIRIES. 205 

SO the effect is all the more ludicrous. Their 
places of rendezvous are recognisable at once 
from the flattened grass, beaten down or worn 
away in a circular patch by the constant tread. 
The Indians place their snares in this circular 
ball-room and catch the dancers by the dozen. 
I watched them one evening assembling for the 
social hop, and proceeding to their steps to 
music of their own. I am afraid I broke up 
the ball in rather sanguinary fashion, perhaps 
excusable after lying in the cold and damp of 
the long pea-grass. Their crops were always 
full of a large blue flower, a kind of anemone 
which was in bloom at the time, and of which 
they ate greedily. 

Two of my companions were of the Bois- 
brule variety and prided themselves not a little 
on combining in their veins the blood of six 
races — Scotch, French, English, Cree, Salteaux 
and Ojibway. We came across Chief Beardy, 
who also prides himself on his mixed descent, 
claiming a connection v/ith the Scottish High- 
lands through an ancestor named Sutherland, 
one of the Company's servants, and so much 
of a Nimrod as to outdo the Indians themselves 
in hunting and so to be elevated to the chief- 
ship with the usual endowment of six wives. 
Undoubtedly it was he who first conceived the 



2o6 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

idea of impounding buffalo herds. The men, 
unlike other tribes, have all very respectable 
beards, a distinction which they attribute to 
their white blood and of which they are in- 
ordinately vain, wearing them as proudly as 
cockades. Chief Beardy was a fine-looking 
fellow, dressed in a spangled shirt, a cap 
covered with many coloured feathers and 
ribbons, and elaborately worked leggings and 
medicine bag. He proved to be a born orator, 
and pointing to me as the only white man 
present, he rose and made an oration in the 
Cree language. He delivered himself with the 
greatest ease and fluency, never hesitating for 
a word. He carried his head high and his 
gestures were graceful and dignified. The 
speech was full of references to "my poor 
country/' "my poor bufi"alo," "both taken 
away from us," " What shall we do ? " "What 
shall we eat?" 

We travelled many days before we came 
upon the herd of bufi'alo, far away between the 
two great rivers, and nearly one thousand miles 
from my starting-point. When I first came to 
the country the buffalo herd reached eastwards 
to the Red River, close to Fort Garry, and 
westward to the Rocky Mountains, and was 
scattered north and south from Lake La Biche 



THE SASKATCHEWAN PRAIRIES. 207 

to the Mississippi Valley, an area of a thousand 
miles each way. Within this space there lived 
some thirty thousand savages, all vigorously 
hunting buffalo for their sustenance. Yet the 
number killed for food was insignificant, com- 
pared to the number slaughtered for their robes 
and skins. My Company, I am able to say, 
acquired in a year as many as one hundred 
thousand robes. Half as many more would be 
accounted for by other traders, Indian require- 
ments and waste. From boyhood it had been 
my ambition to see the great prairie herd, but 
I found only the fag end of it. I was told that 
the decrease was producing disastrous effects on 
the trade of the plains. But to the savages the 
extermination of their principal means of life 
must be the greatest disaster of all. 

The herd we now encountered was large. 
All the party but myself rode old, well-seasoned 
buffalo runners. Rock had never seen a herd 
before, and I had trained him for trotting, not 
for running. Besides, he was only ten hands 
high, while I weighed fourteen stones. How- 
ever, I joined the others, and girths being 
tightened and guns examined, we moved for- 
ward at a foot's pace, many filling their mouths 
with bullets. Our captain in the centre, we 
rode in a line, and gradually our pace became 



2o8 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

a canter till within one hundred and fifty yards. 
Then, hurrah ! allez I Away we went helter- 
skelter in a mad charge. I brought up the 
rear on little Rock, and as we closed with the 
herd it broke up into little bands of five, six or 
eight. A quick succession of shots and the 
slaughter had begun. Each man followed his 
own choice, leaving the dead animals to be 
identified after the run was over. An exciting 
chase undoubtedly. A handful of powder let 
fall from the powder-horn into the gun-barrel, 
a bullet dropped from the mouth into its 
muzzle, a tap with the butt end of the firelock 
on the saddle to cause the powder to adhere 
to the moistened bullet, and all the time gallop- 
ing hard after the lumbering heavy animals 
with their humps and shaggy manes, their long 
beards and fringed dewlaps swaying from side 
to side, their keen, small black eyes rolling 
viciously as they glanced out of their mass of 
tossing hair, now under one shoulder, now the 
other, at the foe behind them. Considering 
the reckless nature of the sport, the heedless 
cross-firing, and the treacherous badgers' holes, 
it was remarkable how few accidents occurred, 
though indeed many horses and their riders have 
come to a violent end on these very prairies. 
The badgers' holes were the worst danger, 



THE SASKATCHEWAN PRAIRIES. 209 

and were indeed a kind of provision of Nature 
for the protection of the buffalo, for often the 
fear of them held back the rider, and allowed 
the prey to escape. 

My luck was poor. Rock completely lost 
his head in the excitement. The sight of the 
huge monsters careering madly along with 
fiery eyes and tossing manes, followed some- 
times by an eagle-feathered savage, mounted 
on a strangely decked-out pony, with the scalp 
of his latest enemy flying behind him, utterly 
demoralised my steady-going, faithful nag, and 
he ran away with me down a steep brae, in 
spite of all my efforts, pitched me headlong 
against an enormous granite block, and him- 
self fled madly over the prairie. Beneath the 
shadow of this boulder I lay in a semi-con- 
scious state I know not how long, but I was 
roused at last by the sight of a large herd of 
buffalo coming full gallop over the crest of the 
hill above me, and making straight in my 
direction, followed by feathered Indians and 
hatless half-breeds, firing wildly from all 
directions and sending dozens of bullets whist- 
ling about my ears till I was deafened with the 
sharp sound. I got hold of my rifle, a repeating 
Winchester, took aim, and planted a patent 
pacificating pill in an immense bull, but alas ! 

S.K. p 



Sio THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

not so as to kill him. As he turned upon me 
I arose and ran round my boulder, he after me, 
and so we chased each other for life and death. 
A bullet from the flint-lock gun of one of the 
savages hit the boulder and sent a splinter 
into my hand, leaving a wound of which I still 
carry the trace. Scarcely knowing I was hit, 
I ran on till my breath was almost gone, and 
I felt that in a few moments I should drop and 
be tossed and trampled by my infuriated foe. 
Suddenly a thought struck me. By this time 
I was chasing him, rather than he me — in fact 
I was close behind him. I raised my rifle as 
he swished his tail round, placed the muzzle 
against the soft skin, and drew the trigger with 
my last ounce of strength. I had won, and 
my already wounded enemy dropped dead. At 
least it had not ended as many such encounters 
do, when in a last paroxysm the wounded mon- 
ster turns and tosses horse and rider into the 
air like dry chips, tearing them with his horns, 
stamping them to death with a dying effort, 
and then falling dead upon his victims. 

About two hundred animals were shot down 
in that race. One of the Bois-brules identified 
twenty -three of his own shooting. The slaughter 
went on for many days, till the piles of refuse 
at each lodge door were as large as haycocks, 



THE SASKATCHEWAN PRAIRIES. 211 

and the air was so contaminated that we had 
to change camp into a clean spot. Although 
the Indians had twice as much meat in hand 
as they could properly cure, the savage instinct 
of the chase was now so strong upon them 
that they could not let a herd pass the camp 
without leaping to their ponies to pursue it. 
Scores of animals were left untouched upon 
the ground, for the wolf and the worm. Truly, 
I thought, the time was coming when these 
wild races would sigh for the flesh-pots of 
Egypt in vain. 

The climate was delightful. We lived in the 
open air under a cloudless sky, in the finest 
and most bracing atmosphere in the world, 
and for once the weather formed a topic of 
conversation in the camp. These prairie 
thunderclouds do not, as a rule, begin to 
gather from below the horizon, as is the case 
near the sea, but in the zenith. A black 
spot appears in the neighbourhood of the 
sun, and quickly increasing in size, soon 
covers the whole canopy of heaven. Occa- 
sionally the black cloud fades away without 
refreshing the arid land beneath. In that 
case the medicine-man and conjurer order out 
a large number of braves and cause repeated 
volleys to be fired towards the disobedient 

P 2 



212 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

cloud. This had been going on for several 
days, and the blacks who had been grumbling 
shortly before at the terrible heat — 120° in the 
sun — were now complaining with equal bitter- 
ness of the lack of sunshine, the lowering skies, 
the heavy atmosphere, and the ever-threaten- 
ing never-bursting cloud. Undoubtedly such 
weather is trying, and brings on headaches 
and smart attacks of pessimism. Even such 
past masters in the art of philosophic indif- 
ference as the medicine-man and conjurer 
yielded to the soporific influence of the atmo- 
sphere, and kept patients waiting for their 
awakening. But at last the storm burst — a 
record storm — and torrents of tropical force 
descended upon our camp. In the midst of 
thunder, lightning, and lashing rain the savages 
were out in full cry after a passing herd of 
buffalo. Yet not one of the slain animals was 
touched, for it is against their traditions to use 
meat killed at such a time. The sport of 
killing, however, was irresistible. 

Having taken part in the hunt, I began to 
bethink myself of my further journey. I was 
sorry to leave them, ferocious and lawless as 
they were. The Indians seemed to have shared 
the uncontrolled spirit of the wild herds among 
whom they had lived for centuries, and the 



THE SASKATCHEWAN PRAIRIES. 213 

half-breeds have drunk of the same wild free- 
dom, paid little heed to the ministrations of 
good Father Andre of the Oblate Fathers, who 
accompanied them on this expedition. I could 
not but marvel a little at that good man's pre- 
sence. He could do but little good. Perhaps 
he sought a means of self-discipline, ad majoran 
Dei gloriam. 



CHAPTER XL 

"red cloud" and "sitting bull" INDIANS 

A WINTER IN THE WOODS. 

Towards the end of June I found myself on 
the fertile soil of " Uncle Sam," in the neigh- 
bourhood of the Yellowstone River. Bleached 
buffalo skulls strewed the prairie, but no live 
animals were to be seen. On the river bank 
stood an immense camp of Sioux Indians, ruled 
by the brave but notorious " Red Cloud." 
" Sitting Bull," I heard, was encamped up the 
Rosebud River Valley, with his braves in war- 
paint. This tribe alone could send out on the 
war-path six thousand warriors, and woe to the 
foe that should cross their path when the war- 
dance had fired their savage blood. A great 
deal of nonsense is talked about the value 
of military discipline as against the untutored 
courage of the savage. Of course, if the 
soldier is well fed, properly clothed, and in 
good health, and the Indian the reverse, there 
is little doubt where the victory will go. But 
soldiers have often to fight on empty stomachs, 



IN DREAMLAND. 215 

without sleep, ill-clothed, and sickly. Hunger 
and sleeplessness are sore enemies to courage. 
The Indian, if his friend the bison is in the 
locality, is sure to be well fed ; the buoyant, 
free spirit of his independent life is in his 
nostrils, the hot blood of animal vis^our is in 
his veins, and he has but one idea — that of 
fighting to the death. Then the victory is not 
always to the white man. 

*' Injuns," says an American humourist, with 
expressive brevity, '' is pison ; " and that is, on 
the whole, the average American judgment of 
the red man. Yet it must be confessed that the 
dwindling survivals of the race which once held 
sway over the entire North American continent 
have not proved a very deadly poison to the 
paleface. Occasionally the old fighting pro- 
pensity flashes out as among the Sioux of 
Minnesota, as when '' Red Cloud " and his six 
hundred braves dashed down on the unfortunate 
Fetterma's troops from the lower ranges of 
the Wyoming mountains and left not one to 
tell the tale. One is tempted occasionally to 
sentimental regrets over the disappearance of 
the '* noble savage " before the encroachments 
of the stranger. Yet such regrets are vain, for 
the event was inevitable. The truth is that 
the red man is incapable of civilisation, and 



2i6 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

since he cannot progress with it he must be 
crushed under its weight. 

Never was this so strongly brought home 
to us as on that June day when we strolled 
slowly up the Rosebud Valley in the glorious 
sunshine. The hill in front of us was dotted 
with white patches, for which I could not 
account. In early spring they might have 
been lingering snowdrifts, but just now, im- 
possible ! We went nearer, nearer still, gazing 
with a growing intensity and horror. They 
were the nude — absolutely nude — bodies of the 
troopers of the 7th United States Cavalry, with 
their officers and their rash but much-loved 
leader. General Custer, slain to a man, and 
mutilated beyond recognition by '' Sitting Bull " 
and his braves. There they were, left to the 
wolves, the worms, and the fowls of the air, the 
last Indian fighters, let us hope, in the United 
States service. For assuredly the work of scalp- 
ing-knife and tomahawk on 25th June, 1876, 
was of a kind to be long remembered, an object 
lesson, let us hope, to the Canadian authorities 
which might teach them to avert such tragedies 
on their side of the boundary. It had been 
thought that all previous differences between 
the Sioux Indians and the Americans had been 
long since forgotten ! The vsight of these bodies 



IN DREAMLAND. 217 

was shocking in the extreme. I knew only too 
well what had happened, familiar as I was 
by this time with the Indians and their ways. 
After the scalps had been torn off, the most 
horrible and devilish barbarities had been com- 
mitted upon the bodies. Then, when the 
warriors had ended their task, the squaws 
came to snatch a laurel from the victory, and 
adorn themselves with the remains ; gnawing 
and tearing the flesh like dogs, in a brutal 
frenzy of revenge. Then, in a delirium of 
ghastly triumph, the war-dance and other 
mysteries began, and these ceremonies ended, 
they squatted down together to a delicious 
preparation of American flesh, which no doubt 
satisfied stomach and conscience alike. Eye- 
balls were dried and strung on a thread to 
adorn the squaws' necks ; teeth were used as 
rattlers on the war music-drums. An appalling 
spectacle truly. Who can ever forget it ? 

As to the question of blame, I am in doubt 
whether the responsibility should be laid more 
heavily upon the untaught savage-natured 
Indian than upon the rash and imprudent 
officers who thus annihilated their troops, and 
whose explanation and exculpation — if any — 
perished with them. Custer was a brave man, 
generous of life and no doub confident of 



2i8 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

victory. But he certainly acted madly and 
recklessly in rushing upon a camp of savages 
with no plan but to hew them in pieces. 
Indians are not without their share of strategic 
ability, and soldiers are not invariably suc- 
cessful against them, though the outside world 
may not hear of the failures. But it is not 
possible to judge justly without information, 
and though I have admitted that the red 
man's savagery is ineradicable, and that he 
must eventually cease to exist, I am at least 
able, after living, talking, camping with them, 
sharing their life and their language, to recognise 
and state his grievances. Whole camps existed 
in semi-starvation on Government doles, a 
state of things which arose simply out of the 
smart dealing on which civilisation prides 
itself. The Government offered to buy the 
land from the Indians, that meaning of course 
the end of their one means of life, buffalo 
hunting. In payment they were to receive so 
many pounds of pork, beef, flour, tea, sugar, 
tobacco, blankets, cloth, guns, ammunition, 
etc., all of which, expressed in round numbers 
of dollars, seemed enormous beyond compre- 
hension to a savage only capable of counting 
his ten fingers. To him it seemed that each 
pound avoirdupois equalled a buffalo bull, and 



IN DREAMLAND. 219 

each dollar's value as much as his pony could 
draw in a cart. The chiefs in council expressed 
the matter with characteristic brevity : *' Pork 
is fatter than our beef; flour we have not in our 
land ; both are good to eat, and in such enor- 
mous (?) quantities must be better than our 
own beef." A treaty was signed, and the 
contract secured by unscrupulous political 
hangers-on whose chief aim in life was to 
make money out of the " hit " at the Indians' 
— or anybody's — expense. By-and-by the sup- 
plies began to reach the camp — a modicum 
of inferior stuff, causing only disappointment 
and vexation of spirit. I do not hold that the 
savages were absolutely innocent and unsuspi- 
cious — that would be to censure the other side 
perhaps too heavily — but certainly they were 
no match for civilised politicians. Yet these 
politicians would have shown themselves wiser 
in showing themselves less clever. The treaty 
with ''Red Cloud" and ''Sitting Bull" was 
not planned by the wisest. It certainly was 
the beginning of the 1861-2 affairs, followed by 
Fetterma's and closed by Custer's annihilation. 
The Sioux Indians were of splendid physique, 
active, bold, and warlike, far superior to the 
tribes in the North. "Sitting Bull" and "Red 
Cloud " were giants in a tribe of giants. The 



220 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

stars of the first magnitude which revolved 
about these dusky suns marked their distin- 
guished rank by allowing their finger-nails to 
grow like eagles' claws, by encircling their 
heads and wrists with wreaths of grizzly bear 
claws from the Rocky Mountains, and by 
wearing rich robes in council and in times of 
war. Even when attired in all their state 
adornments they were far from being the 
gloomy and hideous creatures, with wrinkled 
brows and fierce eyes, that some imagine. 
Their faces showed strength and keen intelli- 
gence, but they were a gregarious race, and 
had a genial and social side scarcely guessed 
at by those who knew them only in their 
wars and massacres. Under the influence of 
patriotism these m.en carried valour to its 
highest point. And if the evil and barbarous 
elements often seemed to predominate over 
the good, can it be wondered at, considering 
how their land was filched from them for an 
unsatisfactory equivalent ? No man who knows 
right, says Milton, ''can be so stupid as to 
deny that all men were naturally born free." 
Indeed, in the dreams of natural rights, in the 
rainbow vision of an inalienable claim to be 
left free in life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness, there is something that has for 



IN DREAMLAND. 221 

centuries, from age to age, evoked a spon- 
taneous thrill in the hearts of toiling, suffering, 
hopeful men — civilised or uncivilised — some- 
thing that they need no philosophic book to 
teach them. When the American General 
came upon their native soil he found the Sioux 
warriors breathing the spirit of conquerors. 
The whole atmosphere was changed ; logic 
began its barbarous work, turned into a strange 
poison. The savage instinct did not rest until 
they had drained first principles to their very 
dregs — nay, argued down from the necessities 
of abstract reasoning, until they had ruined all 
the favouring possibilities of concrete circum- 
stances ! For ever, against Custer's force, 
** Sitting Bull" had now written in his heart 
the judgment written of old on the wall 
against Belshazzar. "We must," said Oliver 
Cromwell, '' annihilate the intruder, or he will 
annihilate us " — in Dreamland. 

After this trip to the country of the Sioux I 
returned to Prince Albert's Settlement, but 
remained there only a very short time. In 
October I set out for Sandy Lake, sixty miles 
north of the Saskatchewan River, where I 
proposed to winter. My second day out I 
came upon an immense camp of Indians. 
They had been called together for the purpose 



222 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

of arranging a treaty with the Canadian 
Government, whose Commissioner was the 
Hon. A. Morris, Lieutenant-Governor of 
Manitoba. I stayed a few days watching the 
proceedings, in which by that time I naturally 
took a very special interest. 

If it were nothing else, the cool tenacity of 
purpose with which Chief " Beardy " faced the 
Commissioner, with his three-cornered hat and 
gold lace, might have borne witness to the 
descent from a "canny Scot" of which he 
boasted. Except a cloth about his loins he 
was absolutely naked, besmeared all over with 
the light yellow clay of his native soil. Clothed 
thus in native dignity, he harangued the Com- 
missioner for four hours without pausing for a 
word. "Yes," he cried, pointing to Mr. Morris 
with a hand not over clean, and adorned with 
mourning borders round the tips of the nails, 
"I am here before you very proud because I 
am covered with a thin coat of my own ground. 
It is more precious to me than that fine coat 
you wear, though it is fringed with gold. 
What are you come for into my land ? You 
can see many fine things in it. Overhead is 
the warm sun, shining out of a bright sky, 
which has no speck or stain to spoil the crystal 
clearness of its blue depths — you have nothing 



IN DREAMLAND. 223 

like it in your country. Its golden rays flash 
and shine as in a thousand glassy mirrors on 
my lakes and rivers throughout all my land. 
Out of one of these lakes, far away below where 
the sun is, come all our buffaloes, which have 
fed ourselves and our forbears for thousands of 
years. If you take the country from us, that 
sacred good lake will refuse to give me any 
further supply of buffaloes. For this reason 
you will go back to your own land without 
getting mine. What would you say if I were 
to go to your country and ask to be master 
of it? 

*' You give us beef to eat now, but it makes 
us ill. And even this will only last while you 
are trying to get our land. When that is 
done you will go away and forget us and our 
families. This is my land, and you have no 
right to it." 

There was, perhaps, in his eloquence, a 
tendency to incoherent rhapsody, but there 
was no question as to the definiteness of his 
intention. Mr. Morris, also of Scotch blood, 
eyed the savage with evident admiration. The 
untutored orator, however, excelled rather in 
speaking than in hearing, for whenever Mr. 
Morris introduced a legal phrase — even through 
the interpreter Erasmus — the dusky brow was 



224 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

knit, and the puzzled eyes showed how little 
he understood what was being said, and how 
much he would have liked a little elucidation. 
But none was forthcoming, and he and his 
braves sat patient and uncomprehending, their 
long hair hanging lank over shoulders and 
back, and their mouths wide open — as, indeed, 
they always were, except when mastication was 
actually going on. They were painfully awk- 
ward, with an awkwardness which was not in 
the least self-conscious, proving that they had 
not even a sense of the " humanities " which 
they lacked. Yet their keen eyes were a 
redeeming feature in faces by no means over 
intelligent, far less so than the Sioux of the 
South. '' Beardy," however, could make him- 
self a somewhat embarrassing barrier to pro- 
gress, and he stolidly refused to '' let go," or 
enter into any treaty for the present. 

Having left ' ' Beardy" behind, we reached Fort 
Carlton, where I found, on the face of a brae, 
the lonely grave of my shipmate from Bernera, 
who had shared my first shipboard prank in 
climbing the rigging of the Prince of Wales on 
our outward journey in 1859. When my train 
of five horses, with four carts and a buggy, 
had crossed the river, we camped on its north 
bank. The weather was beautiful, and the days 



A WINTER IN SOLITUDE. 225 

pleasantly warm. The nights, however, were 
beginning to be very keen, and the lakes were 
already covered with their first thin coating of 
ice. That night, like Nebuchadnezzar of old, 
I was troubled with restless dreams, the result 
of long, sorrowful musings beside my old com- 
panion's grave, and '' my sleep brake from 
me." I jumped up hastily and went out. As 
there was no process of undressing on retiring, 
all trouble of dressing was also saved. I walked 
back and forward on the level prairie, shaking 
off the effect of the evil dreams. When about 
a quarter of a mile east of the camp a huge, 
shaggy animal of great length of body, but 
with very short legs, appeared over the bank. 
I was unarmed, and totally unprepared for any 
such emergency, and was therefore glad to 
retreat as gracefully as might be possible, 
keeping my face to the foe, and backing out 
of his august presence. But suddenly I heard 
a low, stifled roar behind me, and turning 
my head in terror, I beheld another monster, 
as large as the first, right between me and the 
camp. There was no time to deliberate. I 
jumped the high sandbank, and made for the 
water's edge, knocking against tree trunks and 
boulders in my flight, for I had discovered that 
my visitors were an old pair of grizzly bears. 

S.K. Q 



226 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

So much for evil dreams ! My only thought, 
as I hastily stripped for the plunge into the 
cold Saskatchewan and the swim to the fort 
side of the river was — would they follow ? I 
was exhausted after my run, and I stood hesi- 
tating, unclothed, in the keen air of dawn, 
waiting for the next move of my enemies. 
Bears are not particularly shrewd as beasts 
of the field go, and are often content to get a 
man's clothes and tear them to bits, apparently 
quite unconscious that they are not slaying 
their enemy in doing so. So I left my outer 
presentment on the bank, and stood ready to 
plunge if they appeared. It was a long and 
a chilly wait, but with the first signs of sunrise 
I took heart, dressed, and returned to camp 
for my rifle and set forth for the spot where 
I had first encountered my foes. But nothing 
could be seen except the prints of their huge 
feet travelling northwards. Moral, never go 
out unarmed. A fine text for a sermon in 
the old days at home! The wise virgin has 
oil in her lamp — and the wise hunter his gun 
on his shoulder. 

My men went on with the carts and cayooses, 
while I remained behind with Rock to take 
a last look at the fort, this last outpost of 
civilisation, standing on the very spot where 



A WINTER IN SOLITUDE. 227 

McKenzie, Simpson, and Franklin had stood 
ere they penetrated the unexplored forests to 
the north. As I hurriedly followed my trans- 
port I was struck with the rich and fertile 
country through which I passed. Clumps of 
poplar, interspersed with birch and pine, dotted 
the undulating surface of the plain, the foliage 
being beautifully tinged with the reds and 
yellows of autumn, mingled with the natural 
blue-green. The trail was winding enough to 
please any Chinaman — if it is true, as they 
say, that a straight line is an abomination to 
the Chinese ; but I came up with the men as 
they were unhitching for dinner, and taking 
my rifle I set out for a stroll through the 
thicket. In a small open space I noticed what 
looked like two boards standing up out of the 
grass. As I crept forward the things moved. 
All at once I realised that it was a moose deer, 
and getting within sixty yards I lay down and 
taking a steady aim drew the trigger, and 
the cream-coloured antlers disappeared. It 
proved to be a very large buck, and blood was 
oozing from a bullet-hole exactly between the 
horns. We emptied one of the carts, intending 
to put all the meat in it the next day in the 
green hide, and then we settled down for a 
feast on the camping ground where we had 

Q 2 



228 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

dined. In the morning, however, the whole 
animal had mysteriously disappeared, and on 
examination we saw plainly that two grizzly 
bears had carried off the huge buck to a dis- 
tance of some fifty yards, and had there had 
a glorious feast. Probably they were the same 
two as had intruded upon my meditations 
before. On the whole I think I had treated 
them generously. If they let me off easily on 
the river bank I had at least proved no stingy 
host to them. 

The wild fowl had all taken their winter 
flight to the Gulf of Mexico or some part of 
sunny South. Only a few stragglers remained, 
and they were tolerably certain to suffer for 
their procrastination, for, being too fat to rise 
on the wing, they would be ignominiously 
frozen. 

The next day we travelled through the terri- 
tory of the chief Mistaa-waa-sis, who, after 
sharing a hearty meal with us, invited us to 
winter with him and his people. We had 
to decline his hospitality, however, and press 
on. In four days we arrived at Sandy Lake, 
in the land of the big burly chief Ataa-kaa- 
koop, or *' Star Blanket," to whom I explained 
my desire to pass the winter on his land. 
Unlike Mistaa-waa-sis he was inclined to 



A WINTER IN SOLITUDE. 229 

make terms. *' Yes," he said, **if you pay 
me for so doing." "No," I replied, ''you 
sold your land to the big man in the gold-laced 
coat, and you have no further claim to it." 
Eventually, however, I was so delighted with 
his urbanity that I agreed to give him a trifle. 

The untiring Rock, who had been in constant 
work under saddle or harness since April, had 
now to share the fate of the Indian cayoose, 
and scrape his food from under the snow during 
the winter. I had little fear but that with 
his extraordinary appetite and equally extra- 
ordinary digestion he would turn up all right 
in the spring. For our winter abode we had 
a rude enclosure sixteen feet by eleven, made 
of rough pine logs which by no means lay 
in apposition. These were roughly mortised 
together at the corners of the hut. The inter- 
stices between them were filled up with moss 
and clay. The roof was covered in by dry 
poles, and over these we threw marsh grass, 
mud and snow. A mud chimney poked itself 
out at one side, and a parchment window put 
the finishing touch to our winter quarters. 

Not far from here a Mr. Treemiss wintered in 
1862-3, and " Star Blanket " still retained many 
stories of him. About a mile away there was 
a mission-station of the Church Missionary 



230 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

Society in charge of a Mr. J . Hines, a very earnest 
man, evidently sincerely desirous of doing good 
to his fellow-men. I went to service one day 
and noticed that in the middle of the English- 
Indian discourse the chief and some of his 
braves became uneasy. By-and-by they filled 
their pipes, lit up, and soon the whole build- 
ing was full of a thick cloud of tobacco-smoke — 
a sufficient sign that, convert and reform as 
you will, make them Anglicans, Presbyterians, 
Roman CathoHcs, they remain Indians still. 

The discourse was a somewhat literal and 
matter-of-fact account of the Creation and 
other portions of Old Testament history. 
They listened quietly while the interpreter 
told them that the universe was made in six 
days ; that the Lord God walked in the garden 
in the cool of the day ; that the serpent talked 
in human language to a woman named Eve. 
But when he assured them that the first 
generations of men lived a thousand years 
there was a deep sound of " O hoo, O hoo, 
neet-chee, neet-chee," indicating dissent and 
incredulity. The statement that God in anger 
drowned the whole race of man was allowed 
to pass, in that land of floods and mighty 
rivers, but to the story that Balaam's ass (a 
kind of horse with long ears) spoke in human 



A WINTER IN SOLITUDE. 231 

language on being struck with a stick, there 
were again cries of '' O hoo, hoo," while 
the story of Jonah and the whale fairly brought 
out the pipes and tobacco. Apparently they 
thought it was to be taken as a camp-fire yarn. 
When ''Star Blanket" consented to be baptised, 
and appeared in church in Spartan simplicity, 
wrapped in a white blanket not too clean, 
he and his braves, becoming impatient at the 
length of the preliminary service, filled their 
pipes, and beguiled the time by stolidly puffing 
forth clouds of smoke. 

As I did not smoke myself, I left the 
** smoking concert" and went out into the 
night, where I spent my time looking at my 
friends the stars, and wondering idly what was 
going on in the sword of Orion, and whether 
stones fell upward there and parallel lines met. 
It would be a good thing if missionaries would 
follow the example of John Campbell, who 
penetrated Africa in 1813 simply to study the 
necessities and idiosyncrasies of the savage 
races. What these red men needed was prac- 
tical human instruction, to show him what 
duty meant, and that his particular duty 
was to plant potatoes and cultivate the soil. 
The best plan would have been to make a 
better man of him, not merely an indifferent 



232 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

Christian. I, who have traded with the red men 
and know their many dialects and have studied 
their nature and habits through all the tract 
from Hudson Bay to this point, am convinced 
that they are both amenable and amendable. 
Indians they must remain. European customs 
sit but lightly upon them. But they have the 
saving grace of honesty, upon which foundation 
much excellence may be built. The Wood 
Crees are of very different disposition from the 
wild Crees of the plain. They are much more 
peaceable, and spend their time as solitary 
trappers and hunters on foot. 

Big game, too, was scarce, though a few 
years before buffalo had been shot in the 
neighbourhood. Moose deer, too, were rare 
where once they had been abundant. The 
Indian method of trapping is exceedingly cun- 
ning. He builds a small circular fence of wood, 
about a foot high, at one part of which an 
opening is left. Across the aperture a thin 
tree trunk is laid with one end resting on the 
ground. Inside the circle, a forked stick holds 
a piece of meat or fish as a bait. That forked 
stick is set so as to support another small stick 
upon which rests the half-raised log. No 
sooner is the baited stick pulled than the 
supporting one slips, which again lets the 



A WINTER IN SOLITUDE. 233 

horizontal log fall, to the death of the unwary 
animal. 

In the same way they make all wooden 
traps, only using larger pieces of wood as 
larger animals are to be caught. But of all 
the country's animals there are two that baffle 
the hunter — the grizzly bear and the moose 
deer, the former by its strength, the latter by 
its craftiness. The moose deer is valued by 
epicures for its nose, ugly to the eye, but 
delicious to the taste. Its ears are of great 
length, and are indeed its chief means of pro- 
tection, for its hearing is so preternaturally 
acute that the snapping of a twig or the crackle 
of a dry leaf is enough to warn him of a man's 
approach, — though the falling of many trees 
in a storm will not disturb him in the least. 
I had encountered both these animals, the 
former when I was helpless and had no choice 
but to retreat, the latter when I had an advan- 
tage over him in finding him asleep. But I 
resolved to have a fair trial, although I had 
often heard that no man can hunt a moose 
but an Indian, whose instinct for the chase has 
been perfected by years of study and practice. 

After a fall of snow we set out, and at sunset 
camped on a fresh track. Punctually at day- 
light we decamped, the Indian closely examining 



234 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

the willows upon which the quarry had been 
feeding as he went leisurely along. We had 
our mid-day repast, but my companion had 
still nothing to say but " gieapitchi waiawen," 
"far yet," scrutinising the willows and the 
footprints on the snow with the patience 
and exactness of an archaeologist deciphering 
an inscription of Pharaoh's tomb. Again we 
camped, and again we resumed our cold and 
weary pilgrimage, when the Indian in speak- 
ing glances hinted we should leave the trail 
to leeward. Stealthily the Indian returned 
towards the trail alone, and returned bending 
in an attitude of a bob-curtsey to avoid touch- 
ing twigs. Again this manoeuvre was repeated, 
making as it were the curves of the letter B, 
the perpendicular line being the moose's trail. 
The reason for this is that the animal when it 
wishes to rest circles to the right and back and 
lies down at the end of this curve, so that the 
hunter who follows the direct track passes it, 
and thus warned it bounds away. At last we 
found ourselves close to our quarry and felt 
that the critical moment was at hand. A gale 
of wind was blowing ; fortunately, in a favour- 
able direction. But those long, sharp ears ! 
We moved more and more stealthily, examin- 
ing every bush and thicket. Suddenly my 



A WINTER IN SOLITUDE. 235 

companion stopped. " See ! " he whispered, 
as he raised his hand and broke a dry twig 
overhead. A huge dark-haired moose rose 
in a thicket some forty yards away, and in- 
stantly first one bullet and then another pierced 
him, and he sank back into his former bed. 

But these excursions were only occasional. 
My time through the winter was chiefly passed 
in setting traps and baits, the latter heavily 
charged with strychnine. The animals, espe- 
cially foxes, were very cautious. The wolverine, 
or carcajou, was on my track and robbed me 
of nearly all that fate entangled in my traps, 
just as had been the case on Lake Winnipeg. 
His tactics are marvellously skilful, and baffle 
even the Indians over the whole continent. 
During the whole winter he lives off the labour 
of the hunter and trapper, and so great is the 
injury he inflicts that these people call him 
'' Mitche Manitou," or '' Evil One." Day and 
night he searches for the trail of man, and 
he follows it with untiring perseverance when 
found. He is rarely caught in the ordinary 
" dead fall," but is occasionally poisoned or 
caught in a steel trap. In this case he does 
not, like other animals, proceed to amputate the 
limb, but lifting the trap in his mouth he car- 
ries or drags it hastily away to a place where 



236 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

he supposes himself safe, and there devotes 
himself to the extrication of the imprisoned 
limb, a task in which he often succeeds. 
Strange stories are related by the Indians of 
this animal, which they believe to have a 
reasoning power almost human. He has 
certainly the human weakness of curiosity, 
investigates everything closely, and ferrets 
objects out of the snow simply to find out 
what they are. Anything left behind by a 
trapper offers him an irresistible temptation, 
and whatever portion of the spoil he cannot 
eat he utterly destroys by tearing, breaking, 
or besmearing it. Whatever be the useful 
purpose served by these animals in the economy 
of Nature, they have but one redeeming feature 
in the eyes of an Indian, and that is, that they 
are not very plentiful. 

The winter was long, and yet it seemed 
to come to an end suddenly, after weeks of 
from twenty to seventy degrees of frost. The 
untiring Rock was brought back from his 
winter pasture, and I found him to my delight 
*' rolling fat," confirming my previous convic- 
tion as to the nutritious qualities of the grass, 
though covered under many feet of frozen snow. 
On the 13th of April we loaded our carts and 
turned our backs on Sandy Lake and '^ Star 



A WINTER IN SOLITUDE. 237 

Blanket*' with mingled feelings of joy and 
regret. Four days later we crossed the 
Saskatchewan on very thin and treacherous 
ice, which was within an ace of plunging Rock 
and me into our last bath ; miraculously and 
providentially saved by an instinct of my noble 
horse Rock, who, when he felt the ice move, 
jumped into the only gap in the high bank, 
like lightning, and thus saved us both from 
sudden destruction ; and just opposite the 
spot where I stood naked seven months before 
to escape being devoured by the would-be 
grizzlies ! 



CHAPTER XII. 

A TRIP TO THE FURTHER WEST. 

Last summer I traversed the wide plains 
of the South Saskatchewan. This year I 
resolved to explore the north branch to its 
source. In the third week in April the earth 
began to soften ; the evergreen iirs had the 
fragrance of last year's leaves and this year's 
buds ; the rills began to break the frozen 
silence. The earth was rich with the dehcious 
odours of spring, and after the scentless winter 
I breathed them with delight. Mackerel clouds 
floated slowly northward in the sunshine on 
the wings of a soft south wind. Every lakelet 
was alive with ducks and geese fluttering 
eagerly in happy anticipation of early nesting. 
Every grassy knoll echoed in the early morning 
with the joyous drumming of the prairie part- 
ridge. The Saskatom berry bush was in bud, 
and already certain spots were blue with 
anemones. The desolation of the snow-clad 
winter was gone. Immense flocks of birds 
passed northwards continually; the sound of 



A TRIP TO THE FURTHER WEST. 239 

their wings went on all night, well-nigh pre- 
venting sleep. 

At first I travelled alone through a rich and 
fertile country, sometimes wooded, sometimes 
merely a rolling prairie studded with lakelets. 
When I reached the '' Elbow" I found seven 
sons of ''Uncle Sam" there encamped. They 
were from Montana, and were herding a large 
number of fine-looking ponies which they had 
brought to sell to the Indians and half-breeds. 
They knew that in consequence of recent 
political developments a good many Canadian 
dollars would be in the hands of these people 
this summer, and — well, your American does 
not lack shrewdness. 

They received me hospitably, and had many 
stories to relate of Sioux, buffaloes, bears, and 
even of their own ponies. Their conversation 
was a mine of strange experiences and amusing 
anecdotes. I had one stroke of luck while in 
their company. I was driving leisurely along 
the top of a high ridge in the Eagle Hills 
when a two-year-old black bear crossed the 
trail about thirty yards in front. My rifle 
was at my side — I never moved without it 
since my former lesson. I took a hurried 
aim at the animal's nose as he was running 
towards the river, and to my surprise he 



240 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

dropped, the bullet taking him on the hind 
quarters. He roared tremendously, and before 
I could gather the reins Rock was off full 
speed in the opposite direction. A shot 
through the head from my Colt put an end 
to his sufferings, and, the Americans arriving 
on the scene, we had the most delicious black 
steak we ever tasted — for it is only here the 
pleasure of eating is truly appreciated. 

I continued my journey alone as far 
as Battleford, where the newly-appointed 
Lieutenant-Governor, the Hon. David Laird, 
resided. It was but a small cluster of rude 
wooden buildings, though described as "the 
capital of the North-West. " Here I joined 
a party of traders — a huge caravan, bound for 
the farther West. The weather continued 
beautifully fine, and I was still struck by the 
fertility of the country, the rich black loamy 
soil, the picturesque clumps of poplar and 
birch trees, and the plentifulness of wild fowl 
about the lakes. Everything seemed to pro- 
mise the land a great future. Fort Pitt stood, 
like Fort Carlton, on the flat below the high 
old bank of the river Saskatchewan, but was 
smaller in extent and in its buildings. It lay 
within the country of the Blackfeet Indians, 
and dealing wholly with this tribe, it furnished 



A TRIP TO THE FURTHER WEST. 241 

the largest quantity of pemmican and dried 
meat for the posts more remote from the 
plains. The little farming done about the 
place seemed very productive. I saw potatoes 
of an immense size, and excellent vegetables 
of all kinds. Wheat, too, would do well if 
there were any inducement to sow it. Con- 
tinuing our way, we reached Bear Creek, so 
called from the number of grizzlies that 
frequent the thickets on the banks. It is an 
almost dry gully, with banks so high that it 
took the caravan two days to get over them. 
The first day I strolled through many of these 
thickets, but I disturbed nothing, and nothing 
disturbed me. On the second day I strolled 
a little farther afield, and when about two 
miles from the camp, I observed a wet trail 
leading from a pond in the bed of the creek. 
I followed this up to a point on a sandy patch 
where enormous footprints were plainly marked. 
Neglecting all precautions in my eagerness, I 
followed the trace as far as the edge of a 
closely grown thicket, through which a large 
opening had been made evidently quite recently. 
I paused to see to my rifle and to brace up my 
nerves, and then moved cautiously towards the 
back of the thicket. Soon I became aware of 
two glittering eyes, shining like balls of fire 
s.K. R 



242 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

out of the dense undergrowth. There was no 
mistaking these eyes. It would take a good 
deal of mesmeric power to dim them. Still 
they were very little guide to me. A great 
Indian hunter once told me never to fire at a 
bear between the eyes, the ball being apt to 
glance off on either side without, as he phrased 
it, '' doing its duty." But for this hint I 
should have lost patience and fired. I moved 
round the skirt of the bush, but it was so 
thick that I could not see his body, and a 
tremor of impatience and irritation ran through 
my whole frame at seeing no means of getting 
a shot in. As I walked round he began to get 
restless, too, and turned, watching my move- 
ments, and coming towards the opening. I 
thought I had aimed at his side, and I fired. 
A report and a roar that echoed through the 
valley followed almost simultaneously, but my 
aim had been nervous, and my battle was not 
yet won. Now was my opportunity to fulfil 
Napoleon's definition of a truly great man, 
''one who can command the situation he 
creates." We were on the second terrace 
above the bed of the creek. My foe leaped 
from the thicket quick as lightning, dragging 
a broken hind leg. Thankful I was to be 
light of foot, and so to have some advantage 



A TRIP TO THE FURTHER WEST. 243 

over my huge, shaggy antagonist. A clump of 
thorns hard by was my salvation. I took up my 
position and waited. I shall never forget the 
ferocious expression of that grizzly bear as he 
approached the side of the bush while I planted 
a bullet in his broad chest. This brought 
him to his knees, the huge jaws sputtering 
blood and foam. But even yet he was not 
conquered. In an instant he was up on his 
hind legs, with his mouth wide open, ready 
to challenge a last grip. Fortunately I was 
above him, and seeing it to be his last effort, 
I drove the barrel of my rifle down his throat, 
and drawing my knife, plunged it to the hilt 
behind the fore shoulder. Then at last I felt 
that I had conquered. Yet his death was 
terrible. He rolled on his back, his enormous 
paws in the air, and tore himself with his 
claws in a last delirium of agony. Suddenly 
there was a shriek, a shiver, a quiver, and the 
monster lay motionless and dead. '' Mihi 
frigidus horror membra qualit." 

Many thrilling stories have been related of 
the giant grizzly of the Rockies, some of them 
highly coloured, nay, savouring of the miracu- 
lous, as hunters' tales are apt to be. But 
those who have themselves hunted can easily 
distinguish between truth and fiction. Be that 

R 3 



244 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

as it may, there is no question as to the 
strength and ferocity of this giant, for even 
among the Indians there are few indeed who 
will follow him alone to his lair. Were his 
activity equal to his strength, he would be the 
most dangerous animal on the face of the 
earth. The '' king of beasts " himself would 
be no more before the grizzly than a rabbit. 
The fact is that the grizzly, Hke Napoleon, has 
not merely prestige worth a hundred thou- 
sand men, but a reserve of vitality and strength 
beyond any other animal, and his fighting is 
not of the blustering description, but rather of 
the persistent, tense sort, which too often wears 
out the endurance of the hunter. 

As I stood surveying my fallen adversary I 
heard a low noise behind me. Turning 
quickly, I found an Indian brave almost at my 
side. Putting his hand to his mouth, he ex- 
claimed, ** Ohoo, Ohoo, Jowa, keea-winn eesaa 
gaytchi mwea-koow, O atim moos" ("My 
friend, you have killed the big bear, the dog "). 
Thereupon he approached dead Bruin and dis- 
charged the contents of his gun into the 
animal's head. After this exploit he approached 
me, and we cordially shook hands. When 
he learned that I could speak his language he 
was in an ecstacy. 



A TRIP TO THE FURTHER WEST. 245 

** What was your reason for firing at the 
dead animal ? " I asked. 

** Because he killed both my father and my 
grandfather, and they have never been re- 
venged," was his reply. 

Presently two half-clad, miserable-looking 
women appeared, each carrying a baby and 
sundry other articles on her back, and one wild, 
starved-lookingboy, carrying an old gun. What 
share of the household goods v/as not on the 
backs of the women was carried, or rather 
dragged, by three skeleton dogs, harnessed to 
the triangle of wooden poles sometimes used 
by Indians instead of a cart. The apex of the 
triangle rests upon the back of the dog ; the 
base drags along the ground, the baggage 
being tied to a series of crossbars. The 
contrivance is called travoises or travailles. 
The condition of an Indian dog is always 
the best test of his food supply. Fat dogs 
speak of plenty, thin dogs of scarcity, no 
dogs of absolute starvation. Only in the last 
extremity are the dogs killed and eaten. The 
women, draped in a network of tattered buffalo 
robes and other rags, squatted upon the grass, 
scrutinising the bear and myself alternately 
and laughing heartily at the prospect of an 
early feast, as well as at the phenomenon of a 



246 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

white man who understood their own speech. 
.After cutting out a number of the long claws, 
I left the starved family to enjoy a glorious 
repast, worth the world to them just then, 
while I myself returned to camp. 

I found Rock tied to the wheel of the buggy, 
the caravan having moved on many hours 
before. The ''untiring" had many hours* 
hard trotting to do before we overtook the 
others. 

We passed the Beaver Hills, where it is still 
possible to see the traces of a beaver dam. 
The beaver race has for many years been 
gradually retreating northwards, like a defeated 
army. This retreat was planned and conducted 
in most orderly fashion, as I saw on comparing 
my observations with those of. my last year's 
travel in the South. There was a time when 
the beaver's soft dark skin was of greater value 
than it has been recently. The silkworm has 
stolen his market to a great extent. But his 
skill as an architect and his diligence as a 
worker, regarding which I have already spoken 
in an earlier chapter, deserve to be remem- 
bered. His cunning surpasses that of the fox, 
while the spider cannot be compared with him 
in patience and endurance. The honeycomb 
of the bee is less wonderful than his log-and- 



A TRIP TO THE FURTHER WEST. 247 

mud house under water. In hard labour he 
has no rival, for he can by his toil turn aside 
the course of great streams and alter the whole 
face of the country. He can cut down forest 
trees and build bridges to admiration, and has 
his house divided into rooms, with a common 
hall and a neat doorway, through which he 
issues for his morning bath with a regularity 
that would put his Indian fellow-countrymen 
to shame. 

In felling a tree, he can work so as to make 
it fall in any required direction, and when he 
has lopped off its branches he can carry it on 
his back to wherever he wants it to go. They 
work in divisions, each having a master beaver 
in control, and any idler or shirker is igno- 
miniously expelled from the ranks. In con- 
ducting their long retreat northwards, they have 
shown an extraordinary faculty for choosing 
the best and safest localities in little-known 
streams and silent waters far from the ordinary 
beat of the trader or traveller. Thus they have 
been able to keep the invader at bay longer 
than many a trained army. Still the enemy 
finds them out, and at the time of which I 
write (1877) from sixty to seventy thousand 
beaver skins were despatched to i, Lime 
Street, London, every year. Man is their chief 



248 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

enemy, and their dread of him is great. Their 
chief means of defence is their extraordinarily 
acute sense of smell. I have studied beavers 
from Hudson's Bay to the recesses of the Rocky 
Mountains, and have observed this peculiarity 
in all parts. 

One evening I lay in hiding close to a 
beaver village, enclosing an area of some four 
acres of deep, clear water. The animals had 
dammed up the river, so as to form an artificial 
pond. Nothing was stirring in the deep soH- 
tude of the river bank, shut in by rocky walls 
rising perpendicularly to the very heavens, as 
it seemed, on looking upwards. The twilight 
was just beginning to gather over the lonely 
scene, when I saw a seal-like object raise itself 
out of the water at the farther end of the 
pond, glance round for a single second, and 
disappear. Again it appeared, and again, each 
time a little nearer, and each time showing 
a smaller portion of its body as it snuffed the 
air and looked sharply round in its reconnais- 
sance. This went on until it was within 
thirty yards of me, when only the tip of its 
nose appeared, vanishing again instantly with 
a peculiar splash. It appeared no more. 
I was discovered, and that splash was a note 
of warning, reporting the presence of the 



A TRIP TO THE FURTHER WEST. 249 

enemy, and sending the whole army back to 
their burrows beneath the bank. No animal is 
so hard to approach, unless it be the mountain 
sheep, whose fleetness of foot and power of 
taking the most impossible-looking leaps are 
simply miraculous. But these are much 
hunted, especially the big-horn, or moiitoii griSy 
and also the mouton blanc^ as their flesh is 
delicious. 

I shall never forget the neighbourhood 
of the Rockies, the stillness, the endless 
loneliness. The occasional sound of a shot 
died away in vast canons, leaving the sense 
of silence only the more intense. From a 
distance of two hundred miles the great ram- 
part can be seen rising from the prairies like 
a wall. There is nothing in the world to 
compare with it. And among the mountains 
themselves the sight of the billowy sea of 
peaks, tossed in great masses north and south 
and east and west, above and behind each 
other, is truly awe-inspiring. It is futile to 
attempt to describe such a scene. It cannot 
be painted ; it cannot be communicated ; nay, 
it cannot even be shared. The scene of moun- 
tains is one of those enjoyments which can 
only be properly tasted when alone. Shut 
in these awesome solitudes, with snow and ice, 



250 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

canon and chasm, grey peaks and infinite blue 
for prospect, with roar of torrent and thunder 
of avalanche for music, with the unseen 
Companion for all-sufficient society, the soul 
truly becomes in a quite astonishing manner 
audible to itself. The whole of nature seems 
to expand under the influence of the majestic 
surroundings. 

Yet these sharp fantastic spires, these barren, 
snow-clad peaks, where no grass grows, where 
no herd feeds, and which stand apart dreaming 
eternal dreams, apparently aloof from all sen- 
tient life and every human interest, are not 
so useless as they seem. The "practical 
man" must recognise their value. For it is 
their very height and solitude that makes them 
the source and means of the practical industries 
of a continent. It is they that largely control 
the weather ; it is they that furnish the water 
supply. Up in these altitudes they drink in the 
moisture of the elements to give it forth 
again in streams to fertilise the thirsty land 
below. Nature's problem was how to store 
against the heat and drought of summer water 
sufficient for all the land. So she lifted these 
masses up through the clouds, and among 
them stored her rains as solid ice, ready to 
melt and fill the channels of the river fuller 



A TRIP TO THE FURTHER WEST. 251 

and fuller as the days were hotter. Thus from 
a height which gives them an incalculable 
force and driving power great streams flow 
over the whole land. The Yellowstone, the 
fateful Rosebud, the Missouri, the Mississippi, 
to the Gulf of Mexico and the St. Lawrence ; 
the Bow, the Red Deer, and the two Saskat- 
chewans to Hudson's Bay; the Athabasca and 
Mackenzie to the Arctic Ocean ; and the Yukon, 
the Fraser, the Columbia, the Thompson, the 
Snake, and the Humboldt to the Pacific,— 
what a simple yet superb piece of engineering 
they represent ! It is impossible to contem- 
plate these huge, everlasting grey and white 
masses, with their glacier systems and their 
snows, without marvelling at the provision of 
Nature for the flat world below. 

They are rich, too, in their store of precious 
metals and jewels. Throughout the whole of 
the mountainous region, really a continuation 
of the Californian and Montana ranges of 
the United States, the presence of valuable 
minerals has been demonstrated at so many 
points as to lead to the opinion that rich 
metalliferous beds run through the range from 
end to end, an area of some fifteen thousand 
square miles. 

The prairie tableland rises from an elevation 



252 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

at Winnipeg of seven hundred feet above sea 
level to four thousand feet in the pastoral up- 
lands at the base of the Rockies. During the 
spring I saw wild strawberries and raspberries, 
and English and other European wild flowers 
and flowering shrubs in profusion. Cinerarias 
were abundant of every shade of blue, an 
immense variety of composite species, many 
roses, tiger-lilies, orchids, and vetch, and a 
flower like the lychnis, with sepals of brilliant 
scarlet. 

During the whole spring and summer not 
a buffalo was to be seen, which shows how 
closely the few herds that remain are hunted. 
Once the prairie contained tens of millions of 
those animals ; now, looking eastwards over 
the great empty ocean of grass, I am speech- 
less at the thought of what this means to the 
red man. The skin gave him a house, the 
robe a blanket and bed, the undressed hide a 
boat, the curved horn a powder flask, the flesh 
his daily food, the sinew a bow-string and 
thread to sew his shoes and clothes, the leather 
a saddle, bridle, rein, and bit, and a lariat for 
his horse. They supplied his every want from 
infancy to old age, and after life was over it 
was in a buffalo robe that he was wrapped 
to dream of the happy hunting fields. It is 



A TRIP TO THE FURTHER WEST. 253 

scarcely to be wondered at that my sympathies 
go out very fully to the Indians, considering 
how much I saw of them and their ways. 

In Baffin Land in 1859 I came in contact 
with the Eskimos, 2,000 miles from the point 
I had now reached. On the western shores of 
Hudson's Bay I found the Swampie Indians, and 
on the first steppe I made the acquaintance of 
the Salteaux of Lake Winnipeg and the lower 
Red River of the north. East of Lake Winnipeg 
I found the Cranes and Ojibways ; west, on 
the Assiniboine and Qu'Appelle,the once power- 
ful tribe of the Assiniboines. Between this 
river and the Saskatchewan I travelled among 
the Plain Crees, whose language is the root 
speech of all the tribal dialects, as Latin is of the 
Romance languages of Europe. The country 
between the two branches of the Saskatchewan, 
where I spent many adventurous days, is claimed 
by the warlike Blackfeet, the finest specimens of 
humanity among them. North of this were 
the Wood Crees, the Chippewayans, and the 
** Slavs"; south, towards the Missouri, lived 
the fierce Sioux. In the neighbourhood of the 
Rockies were many smaller tribes differentiated 
only in name : Shushwapps, Sarciers, Stonies, 
and Sicanies. Having ntixed with and talked 
with all in their various dialects, I learned to 



254 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

know their characteristics, their distinctive 
habits and ways of Hfe, and to honour them 
for much which we, who assume lordship over 
them, might do well to imitate. Who can tell 
the origin of these tribes, or set a time when 
first they hunted the buffalo upon these plains ? 
Many attempts have been made, all to end in 
vague theories, little better than admissions of 
failure. The 30,000 feet in depth of Argoic 
rock reveals the New World to be older than 
the Old. Long before Abram departed out 
of Haran these tribes may have been wandering 
over the limitless prairie. Good Father Andre 
beheved, and contended vigorously, that they 
were the lost tribes of Israel. Ethnologists find 
in them the lineaments of Norse, Celtic, Tartar, 
and Egyptian ancestry. And after all nothing 
is known either of whence or when or how they 
came, or of their past history in the land. Only 
their future is certain and somewhat sorrowful, 
for the fiat has gone forth, and they must sicken 
and die before the breath of civiHsation. What 
then ? What is there to say ? Nothing at all. 
They and we alike are creatures of a day. 
Races and individuals arise, and run their 
course, and disappear. We are the children 
of Nature, and of God. 

So then I had realised my boyish hopes. 



A TRIP TO THE FURTHER WEST. 255 

I had seen the great New World, and spoken 
with Indians, and shot grizzHes in the Rocky 
Mountains. And now I had reached the Hmit 
of my journeying. The rest was to be but 
coming back. I was, and am, satisfied, amply 
satisfied. I wandered a last time among the 
great scaurs and tumbled cliffs, then turned 
away eastward with the memory of it in 
my heart, to think of it and dream of it 
ad finem. What a dreamland, to be sure, 
for Celtic imagination ! 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE RETURN JOURNEY. 

My way home lay before me as I slowly 
descended the eastern ridge of the mountains 
among which I had been roaming. Down there 
so far beneath my feet the pine trees on the 
plain looked like spear-grass. I distinctly saw 
the gradual fall of the prairie as it sank from 
the plateau near the mountains to lower levels 
beyond in visibly graduated steps, as if marking 
the retreat of the primeval waters. The horizon 
was wide and blue as on the sea, and the same 
keen, fresh air swept over this undulating prairie 
ocean. Soon I left the rocky summits behind, 
and saw about me patches of bleached grass, 
with green spots, where water had gathered in 
the hollows. Lower I passed through tufts of 
birch and copses of the balsam poplar, emerging 
at last upon the prairie, rich in its summer 
bloom. Nowhere on earth is there richer pro- 
fusion of blossom. In July the roses are in 
full beauty, and for hundreds of miles my trail 
lay through masses of them, of all shades, from 



THE RETURN JOURNEY. 257 

palest cream to richest crimson. Every cutting 
and bank and scoop was filled with them. 
They spread a pink bloom over the land for 
acres. Wild lavender, red columbine, spireas, 
white and pink, blossomed with them ; pale 
yellow cactus, and the gaillardi of Scotch flower 
gardens grew like buttercups in the grass, and 
a few weeks later the lilies, rich in scarlet, 
added the last perfection to the year's bloom. 

Such was the Nature's garden through which 
I drove for hundreds of miles, till I found myself 
at the Roman Catholic Mission of St. Alban's, 
the headquarters of that excellent son of his 
church. Bishop Grandin, whose diocese is larger 
than Europe. During my short stay at Fort 
Pitt I heard him preach to his people, fluently, 
in four diff'erent tongues. The little colony of 
some thirty houses, built on rising ground, near 
a small lake and river, seemed in a flourishing 
condition. A fine wooden bridge spanned the 
river, the only structure of the kind I had seen 
in the country. 

The Bishop's house was a pretty white 
building, with a large garden attached, and 
adjoining it were the chapel, school, and nun- 
nery. His lordship was absent when I called, 
but I found a worthy substitute in the resident 
priest. The Bishop's furniture was simple in 

s.K. s 



258 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

the extreme, consisting chiefly of a few rough 
chairs. The walls were adorned with many 
coloured prints, amongst which were portraits 
of PiusIX.,and of BishopTache of St. Boniface, 
with a picture representing some very sub- 
stantial and pious-looking angels lifting a few 
merry-visaged saints out of the flames of pur- 
gatory. The school was crowded to excess, 
and all the work seemed successful. I must 
say that at this mission settlement I found 
the most charitable, the most admirable, and 
the most truly Christian work in the country. 
The devotion of the Roman Catholic priesthood 
is well known, but here there had been but lately 
a notable example of it. A few years before, 
a severe epidemic of smallpox had visited the 
plain country. When the attack comes on, 
with the burning fever, the red man finds his 
relief in great draughts of cold water, with the 
result that he soon finds permanent rest in 
the arms of his best friend, death. Thus the 
epidemic had killed the natives ofl" by scores, 
when the Bishop and his staff set to work 
among the widely-scattered camps on the 
plains, and rescued from the jaws of death 
some eighty castaway children belonging to 
plague-stricken families. All these were fed, 
clothed, and educated in this isolated mission, 



THE RETURN JOURNEY. 259 

the motto over whose lintel might well be, 
'^ Now abideth faith, hope, and charity, but 
the greatest of these is charity." It would, 
however, have been too much to expect that 
these wild children of the prairies should at 
once prove themselves amenable to instruction 
in Christian dogma. Some of their answers 
to the catechist were more entertaining than 
accurate. But there were signs of an admir- 
able beginning, and at least the Bishop had 
not been content to commend these orphans to 
the Fatherhood of God and pass on. What- 
ever be the reason, there is no doubt that 
the Romish clergy far excel their Protestant 
brethren in their missionary work and influence. 
One of them said to me, in the course of a 
friendly discussion, ** You see we have no other 
claims on our lives. The Protestants have to 
think what comforts they can give their wives, 
and how much money they will be able to leave 
to their children." Be this as it may, they 
certainly allow no considerations of personal 
danger or hardship to deter them in their work, 
and they have been singularly successful in 
teaching the people the elements of civilisation 
as well as religion. 

Fort Edmonton stands on the north bank of 
the Saskatchewan. It is the chief factor's 

s 2 



26o THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

headquarters and the most important establish- 
ment in the district. Its form is much Hke 
that of the other forts, a group of wooden 
buildings, surrounded by a high square 
palisade, flanked at each corner with small 
towers. I found that here as at the Red River 
many retired Company's servants were betaking 
themselves to farming and building log huts 
along the river bank north and west of the 
fort. The fields of wheat were magnificent, 
waving in the autumn breeze and shining in 
the sun like gold. A single glance at the fields 
was sufficient to show the suitability of the soil 
for cereal-growing. It is of the same **fat" 
sort as that at the Red River, and of equal 
depth, the only soil I have as yet seen to 
equal it. 

News reached me here that eight or ten 
thousand Sioux Indians had crossed the 
boundary into British territory seeking safety 
from the American troops. Still I resolved to 
make the thousand miles' journey to Winnipeg 
alone. Rock was in good condition, I myself 
in high spirits and fears for personal safety long 
since forgotten. 

My first stage was Fort Saskatchewan, 
recently established as the headquarters of the 
Mounted Police on the plains of the North- 



THE RETURN JOURNEY. 261 

West. Lieutenant-Colonel Jarvis hospitably 
entertained me here for a few days. I have a 
grateful recollection, too, of Sergeant-Major 
Belcher, a big, burly Englishman of fine 
physical proportions and apparently fitted for 
any emergency, as well as of Sergeant Carr, a 
very jolly and good-looking Irishman who 
certainly ought to have been a knight of 
chivalry and of romance. He acted as Post- 
master-General, not for the fort only but for an 
area quite as large as that controlled from St. 
Martin's le Grand. The police force numbered 
one thousand men of splendid physique, and 
was both military and civil. Indeed it was a kind 
of combination of mounted infantry, artillery, 
transport, commissariat, and ambulance, every 
man of which, whether in camp, barracks, 
or on the trail, had to be prepared to cook, fight, 
carry despatches, drive a team, or break in a 
wild colt. They were armed with Winchester 
carbines and revolvers. It patrolled a country 
larger than Great Britain and Ireland, which 
has since increased by the addition of territories 
further west. It is impossible for me here to 
recount all its notable achievements in dealing 
with ''Sitting Bull's" braves since last year's 
massacre of Custer's force in Wyoming. It 
was organized just after these great plains had 



262 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

been handed over by treaty to the Canadian 
Government, and when there was some reason 
to fear lest the country should lapse into 
anarchy. 

Up till that time my Company had for two 
centuries kept more than merely a semblance 
of order among the inhabitants, and indeed 
some tribute is justly due to its policy towards 
these savages. It certainly was singularly 
successful in securing their confidence and 
goodwill. By the simple aid of the initials 
** H. B." a traveller could cross the plains from 
Fort Garry to the Pacific in perfect safety, even 
in times of Indian warfare. We had a doggerel 
verse which ran — 

" But when they see that little flag 

A-stickin' in that cart, 
They just said ' Hudson Bay, go on, 

Good trader with good heart.' " 

But when the plains were thrown open for 
settlers it was thought that strange men, with 
strange implements and novel machinery, might 
excite the fears and perhaps the dislike of the 
fierce Cree and Blackfeet tribes, already 
partially demoralised by the "fire water" 
which Americans were sending into the 
country. And thus the Mounted Police were 
raised. 



THE RETURN JOURNEY 263 

Leaving Fort Saskatchewan I had continued 
my lonely journey for some days, when, one 
evening, just as I had finished supper, a pro- 
cession of two Indian families walked up to 
my camp fire. The men, as usual, stalked on 
before, carrying their guns only, while the 
women followed behind heavily loaded with 
the household gods. These consisted of 
battered kettles, papooses, and whatever 
personal property either of the two possessed. 
Wretched-looking children in rags and crying 
for food straggled in the rear one by one, all 
starved and naked, with the bones showing 
painfully under the tender brown skin. One 
poor tattered mother carried a two-year-old 
son on her back along with other burdens, 
while a newborn infant, swaddled in a ragged 
shawl bagged and tied like a black pudding, 
surmounted the load. Poor creature, she sank 
to the ground exhausted, and immediately 
another woman squatted beside her and laid 
her head on her knees, whereupon she instantly 
set about examining her friend's pate like a 
monkey at the Zoo. Never in all my experience 
had I come across a more tatterdemalion lot. 
Anything more utterly miserable than their 
condition it would be impossible to imagine. 
Their story was a heartrending one. Sickness 



264 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

had overtaken them on their way to the plains. 
Their two ponies were killed and eaten, then 
their dogs, and their loads left behind on the 
trail. Even the tattered buffalo robes had been 
roasted and eaten, and the scraps of torn 
blankets, and the odds and ends of battered 
kettles and rusty traps, were all they had left. 
They had known the chiefs ''Big Bear," " Little 
Bear," and '' Lucky Man," but they had held 
aloof from these, and of their own company all 
that death had left were the tattered few now 
gathered starving in my camp. Poor things, 
it was not their fault that their race was doomed 
to extinction ; it was not our fault that we 
found better uses for their native soil than 
leaving it as a haunt for buffaloes, but it seemed 
hard that they should thus be left naked and 
starving. Cheerfully I handed them all the 
food I had, little enough, unfortunately. Indeed 
they were so fierce with hunger that I felt some 
dread lest Rock and I should furnish their 
larder for the next week, for the slender meal 
I could offer them scarcely did more than 
intensify their hunger. Yet it turned out to be 
sufficient to put them to sleep, and soon the 
camp was silent. The silence of these prairie 
nights is profound. As I lay awake I heard 
the occasional hoot of an owl or cry of a 



THE RETURN JOURNEY. 265 

wolf, and the breathing of the sleeping people 
beside me, but besides these not a sound of life 
from horizon to horizon. A hush seemed to 
lie upon the whole wide world. By-and-by the 
Aurora borealis began to play faintly across 
the sky. It grew brighter as I watched it, and 
soon its rose-tinted waves and bars of exquisite 
light flashed and palpitated over the whole 
heavens. Up and down, out and in, the 
tremulous shadows wove their mazy network 
in threads of subtle radiance. It was like a 
dance of celestial spirits, and I scarcely 
wondered at the theory held by some that, 
were our ears less dull, we should hear seraphic 
sounds — perhaps a faint music of the spheres 
— accompanying this shadowy minuet of the 
skies. 

Morning came, and I drank the last potful of 
sugarless tea I was to taste for many days to 
come. I gave the Indians all my gunpowder 
and shot — for I carried a double-barrelled 
shot gun as well as my Winchester. This 
rather reckless gift nearly cost me my life. No 
traveller should cross the prairies without a 
good shot gun and plenty of loose ammunition. 
Big game is not within reach every day, nor 
even every week, and to trust only to one's 
rifle for food is therefore rather risky. They 



266 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

had not a mouthful of food when we parted, 
but there was at least the hope that the powder 
and shot would enable them to procure some. 

For my part I travelled many days without 
a shot, and to my greater distress discovered 
at last that I was on the wrong trail. But by 
this time physical discomfort affected me but 
little. I had often known what it was to live 
chiefly on imagination. So I maintained a 
stout heart, and doggedly pursued my way, 
depending for food on the roots of species of 
wild turnip and potato. 

One evening I reached the shores of an 
unknown lakelet just as the woods were 
darkening into a cold intensity of green. The 
smooth waters were flushed into warmth by 
the reflection of the sunset clouds, which 
spread in soft pink masses over the whole 
heavens. The beauty of the scene fascinated 
me, and I resolved to camp there for the night. 
Gradually the colour faded, and the grey chill 
of twilight crept through the air. The birds 
were hushed, and the loneliness and silence 
weighed heavily upon my spirits. Occasionally 
the hoot of an owl or the cry of a hungry wolf 
broke out of the gathering darkness. A solitary 
loon resting on the surface of the lake uttered 
its melancholy wail. Famished and cold I lay 



THE RETURN JOURNEY. 267 

by my lonely fire, turning now one side, now 
the other, to its warmth, imitating with my 
wearied body the diurnal motion of the earth 
round the sun. Suddenly I heard a sound as 
of dogs barking. I sat up and listened eagerly. 
Yes, it was distinct and clear through the 
silence of the cloudless, starry night. Dogs ! 
That meant Indians, a camp, food, companion- 
ship, direction. In a trice Rock was harnessed, 
and we were off through the darkness. Straight 
for the sound of barking he hastened, and 
soon I found myself, with hardly any guidance 
of my own, right in the midst of an immense 
Indian camp. Out from every tent poured 
braves, with full-cocked guns and much excited 
talk, to find out the meaning of the intrusion. 
A few warning shots were fired, and all crowded 
round my buggy. There was somiething inde- 
scribably terrifying in the haste, the alarm, the 
excitement, and the babel of unknown speech. 
Seven Indian dialects I knew well, but this was 
merely a confusion of meaningless chatter and 
fierce yells. When I had time to look about 
me I found that I had blundered into a camp 
of Blackfeet, a tribe of whose language and 
habits I knew nothing. Fortunately it trans- 
pired that one or tvv^o of them could speak a 
little Cree, and by this means we soon became 



268 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

friends. The chief himself, ^' Old Sun," a 
humane and wise man, conducted me to his 
tent, and treated me with the greatest hos- 
pitality. I even got so far as to suffer the rite 
of initiation into the '' blood brotherhood." 
Altogether I was in high favour, more so than 
I quite wished to be, though after my painful 
journey, and my weary days of cold and hunger, 
I was ready to plunge vigorously enough into 
what seemed a life of ease and luxury. There 
is always a great danger of reaction when those 
who have been famished to the verge of starva- 
tion find themselves suddenly in the midst of 
plenty. I simply sloughed my old vigorous 
self, and relapsed into a kind of torpor, inter- 
rupted with ravenous fits of overeating. The 
wonder is that my sorely-abused '' frater 
corpus," as St. Francis called his body, came 
out of it as it did. But it was merely a reaction, 
and soon the ordinary course of my nature 
reasserted itself, and I thought with apprecia- 
tion of the wild turnip and potato soup I had 
lived upon so slenderly in the wilderness. 

This tribe, called in their own language 
Savakeans, I found to be the most original and 
interesting, and at the same time the most 
dignified and most rationally inclined, that I 
had yet come across. The men appeared of 



THE RETURN JOURNEY. 269 

less stature than their enemies and neighbours 
the Crees, but were nevertheless tall, well-made, 
active and athletic in appearance. Their 
manners were mild and pleasing, an effect 
greatly heightened by a singular softness and 
melody of voice. They had clear-cut, noble 
features, the nose aquiline, straight or slightly 
Roman, and the cheekbones less prominent 
and lips thinner than those of any other tribe 
I had met with. Their dress was character- 
istically Indian, but unusually clean and well 
ordered. Both sexes were highly painted with 
vermilion on lips, cheeks and forehead. The 
women wore long gowns of buffalo skin, dressed 
to a beautiful softness, and dyed with yellow 
ochre. These robes were confined at the 
waivSt by broad belts of dressed skin, thickly 
studded over with highly polished, round brass 
buttons. The tribal instinct is strong among 
all these savages, and tribal jealousies and 
tribal wars are perpetually going on. One 
result of this is that intermarriage of blood 
relations are common, and that some of the 
smaller tribes have suffered from this habit to 
such a degree that they have become extinct. 
Among these Blackfeet, however, I found this 
evil obviated by a rude rule, by which the 
children of two brothers or of two sisters might 



270 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

not marry, while a man's children might marry 
into the family of his sister. The tribe as a 
whole were vigorous in mind, apt to learn, 
quick in understanding, and sound in judg- 
ment. They had a notion of a supernatural 
world, of a life after death, and of the differ- 
ence between right and wrong. Old traditions 
of visions of the unseen lingered among them, 
of dead relatives seen in dreams, and of assur- 
ances of beatific vision in another life. Their 
dead were hung in trees, with all the articles 
familiarly used in life. A horse was shot 
for their equipment in the Happy Hunting 
Grounds. All brass ornaments were removed, 
and that some portion or sign of human love 
might accompany them, the widow or widower 
chopped off a finger-joint. Many might be 
seen who had thus lost three or four finger- 
joints. 

The chief ''Old Sun" was a remarkably 
*' knowing" old gentleman, and might almost 
have been a Pict, so '' auld farrant " was he. 
All his life he had been par excellence a warrior, 
a councillor, and a hunter, volunteering again 
and again for dangerous duties and positions. 
His wife had a strange and romantic story, 
quite worth relating in full. 

Many years before this Piegan maiden had 



THE RETURN JOURNEY. 271 

wandered alone from her camp to look for 
strayed horses. These horses had, however, 
been stolen by the men of Gros Ventres, a 
small tribe, the last remnant of which were 
the miserable creatures to whom I had given 
my ammunition earlier on my journey. Not 
content with securing the horses, they sur- 
rounded the maiden and carried her off. Her 
hands were tied behind her, and she was 
placed before the chief on horseback, and rode 
on till the middle of the following day, when 
he ordered a halt, and sent all his men off to 
hunt, he himself staying to watch the captive 
maiden. He became weary, however, having 
spent many nights without sleep, and lay down 
to rest. But first he tied her securely with a 
strong raw thong, which he attached to his 
own person, and placed his gun and knife 
under him. His tomahawk, however, he left 
lying by his side. As soon as he was asleep 
the girl quietly took the tomahawk and struck 
him with all her might upon the temple, killing 
him on the spot. As in the last spasm he 
turned, she caught up the knife upon which he 
had been lying, cut the thongs which bound 
her limbs, and finally drove its long blade into 
the dead chief's heart. After cutting scalp, 
tongue, and one arm from the body, and 



272 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA 

appropriating the dead man's gun, knife, and 
tomahawk, she mounted his horse and rode 
off. She soon found herself being followed 
hard by her captor's braves, who at one point 
were within five hundred yards of her. Yet 
her horse, fired by the smell of human blood, 
galloped with frenzied speed, and so saved 
her life, for she reached her camp in safety the 
next day. She treasured the ghastly relics 
with infinite pride, keeping them as trophies 
of war in a leather cabinet made of a grizzly 
bear skin with claws on. In consequence of 
this act, atrocious to our ideas, and yet full of 
a kind of savage heroism recaUing that of Jael, 
the wife of Heber, she was made the wife of 
*^ Old Sun," one of the most outstanding of 
the Red Men's chiefs. 

After my idle existence had fairly had time 
to pall upon me, I fell eagerly to planning 
how best to resume my journey, and when, 
with a fresh supply of gunpowder and shot 
in my possession, I said good-bye to my kind 
friends and shook up Rock's reins once more, 
I felt like a schoolboy just let out of school. 
Although thick smoke eddied from a hole 
at the top of the tent, it was most painful to 
my eyes, and I had been truly slowly 
** cured " in smoke. I rejoiced to be again out 



THE RETURN JOURNEY. 273 

in the open alone. There is not much variety 
in the prairie, but in its wide soHtary freedom 
I found my deepest instincts satisfied. There 
is no more misleading saying of antiquity than 
that which says, ''A little while is enough to 
view the world in ; it signifies not a farthing 
whether a man stands gazing here a hundred 
or a hundred thousand years, for all he gets 
by it is to see the same sights so much the 
oftener." This may be true of the man who 
never grows and never learns. The genuine 
observer finds no sameness. If it is possible 
to pore over some great poet again and again, 
and to find new meaning and beauty every 
time, hov/ much more is it possible in study- 
ing that supreme poem, the Universe ? How 
I searched it ! How it searched me ! I said 
to myself, ** It is good to be here," and I 
would fain have built my tabernacle there in 
the great solitude. 

But I had to press on, and day after day 
passed in steady, uneventful progress till the 
Eagle Hills — near which I had killed the 
black bear five months before — were passed. 
One evening, observing the moon to be in 
its first quarter, I resolved to travel on until 
it disappeared from sight. But as I looked 
upwards I saw a black spot gathering on the 

S.K T 



274 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

face of a crystal sky, high in the zenith. 

Just so had I noticed the first indication of 

a prairie thunderstorm, and now I judged it 

best to look for a suitable camping ground 

before the torrents descended. The blackness 

rapidly spread itself over the vault of heaven, 

and out of it came first a few flashes of sheet 

lightning, and afterwards — not torrents of rain, 

but a living mass of voracious flies, blacker and 

somewhat larger than mosquitoes, and armed 

with long fangs. Had not Rock been already 

in harness when the fly-cloud burst, he would 

surely have been devoured. He and I alike 

were well nigh choked ; mouth and nostrils 

were filled in an instant if we opened either. 

And as we were thirty miles from the open 

prairie, my only hope of safety lay in driving 

Rock at his best — which was about ten miles 

an hour — in order to draw air suction, for the 

night was as calm as death. In three hours 

he brought me into the open country, how, 

I scarcely know, as I was under layers and 

layers of flies, while he, poor animal, was 

covered all over some six inches deep, 

as I found on rubbing him with grass. A 

blessed breeze had sprung up from the east, 

and, driving to a high hillock, I quickly set 

fire to the grass. Rock stood in the flames 



THE RETURN JOURNEY. 275 

doggedly, apparently resolved to be burned to 
death rather than have the life sucked out of 
him by the torturing insects. To me it was 
the most unique experience I had met. I had 
heard from Indians of such things, but had 
never seen anything of the kind before. 

The severe bleeding so w^eakened my brave 
horse that it became necessary to get a com- 
panion for him, partly to inspirit him, and 
partly to ease his burden. And, indeed, the 
Blackie I eventually procured proved a won- 
derful encouragement, and soon Rock became 
his old self again. 

Crossing the South Saskatchewan at 
Batoche's scow ferry, I found myself on the 
old trail over which I had passed two years 
before — then westward bound to a terra incog- 
nitUj now eastward set for home. Once again 
at the foot of the well-known hill, the solitary 
landmark of this lonely wilderness, Spa- 
thanaw Watchi, on the top of which stands 
the cross over the solitary grave, I lingered, 
pondering over all that had befallen me since 
last I rested there. Something in the wide, 
unpeopled solitude recalled the words of 
Rabelais, "Go, friends, in the protection of 
that intellectual sphere of which the centre is 
everywhere and the circumference nowhere, 

T 2 



276 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

which we call God. Everywhere, in the world, 
in the motion of the planets, in the wondrous 
mechanism of the body, we find the works of 
the Divine Hand, the design of the Divine 
Hand, but to all prayers, to all cries, all 
yearnings, there is silence." Nay, that God 
had not been silent to me, that God had been 
near to me in my lonely wanderings during 
these two years, I am a witness. Thus, I beg 
to differ from the French satirist and priest. 
Full of humour and wit as he was, he was 
deficient in that delicacy without which genius 
may sparkle for a moment, but can never 
shine with pure undiminished lustre. Yet 
Nature is physical, and pitiless in her reign of 
unrelenting law, neither nurse nor mother, but 
a field for labour and a grave. And not until 
these primitive conditions have been modified 
and some modest degree of culture attained, 
can a higher conception of the world and its 
spiritual meaning be obtained by man. 

After leaving the great salt plain behind, 
and as I entered the West Touchwood Hills, 
my attention was suddenly arrested by some 
strange object on the road before me. Behind 
me lay a gloomy sky, which lent but little 
clearness to the vision, but presently the dark- 
ness gave way to a cheerful blue, out of which 



THE RETURN JOURNEY. 277 

the brilliant autumn sunshine burst forth. 
Then I saw that the strange object was a 
caravan coming to meet me. Who could it 
be invading the wilderness in such a fashion ? 
A thousand conjectures ran through my mind 
as a horseman rode forward to meet me. It 
turned out to be Mrs. Laird, wife of the 
Lieutenant-Governor, escorted by a great 
retinue en route to join her husband at Battle- 
ford. As I was the latest arrival from there I 
must be prepared to be fully catechised. We 
had never met before, but when people en- 
counter each other in the middle of the prairies 
they do not wait for introductions. She shook 
hands with me, and after a few preliminaries 
I took my position in front of a glowing camp 
fire, she all eagerness to question, I equally 
ready to answer, and the business of the evening 
began. 

" You have come from Battleford, Mr. 
Campbell. How is my husband ? Do you 
think I shall ever see him again ? As you 
know, numbers of these wild American Sioux 
have crossed the boundary. What shall we do ? 
Oh, my dear husband, were I only near him ! 
Are the Indians wild at Battleford ? Did any 
of them fire at you during your long travels 
amongst them ? Where is your party ? How 



278 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

daring of you to travel as you do without a 
companion ! '* 

'* Timor facet Deos," I put in. 

** True, Mr. Campbell, but not in our time, 
when the Sioux Indians are acting so cruelly." 

Upon being informed that I had travelled 
alone from the Upper Saskatchewan, she 
almost fainted away with amazement. By- 
and-by she resumed, '' You are foolhardy, 
Mr. Campbell, and may yet rue the day you 
risked so much. There are many Sioux 
Indian camps lying south of your trail, so 
beware. We have to keep watch every night, 
and even through the day we are scarcely 
safe. Did you hear how these same heartless 
savages cut down General Custer and his 
soldiers to a man ? The General's wife was 
not with him — which was a mercy in one way 
— but I am going to join my husband to suffer 
with him, should the Fates serve him in such 
a way." 

Truly, I thought, what a priceless treasure 
is a true woman, that one can trust alike far 
away and at home ! 

It was quite evident, however, that I must 
consider my own safety ; and as a man's first 
duty is to himself, and I was never good at 
angling for favour, I drove away, and was 



THE RETURN JOURNEY. 279 

soon lost to view among the hills. I thought 
with some amusement of my recent position 
under the fire of Mrs. Laird's kindly cross- 
questioning. Still, as I drove on, I kept a sharp 
lookout, feeling that any clump of trees might 
hold a lurking foe, whose rifle might empty 
my saddle at any moment. My noble Rock 
was still alive, doing his two yokes to Blackie's 
one without a murmur. And the score was 
steadily running in his favour, for already 
Blackie was beginning to show signs of wearing 
out. Very few horses could have borne the 
strain of repeated double yokes at the rate I 
had travelled from the South Saskatchewan — 
sixty-five miles a day. Apparently Rock felt 
that he was being imposed upon, for as I 
awoke one morning I espied him hobbling 
himself and his companion into a dense 
thicket, evidently hiding to evade an early 
yoke. I watched the manoeuvre with interest 
while drinking the inevitable black, strong, 
sugarless tea, and picking what flesh remained 
on the bones of a prairie chicken, which 
constituted the early morning's repast. Had 
I not seen them enter I could not possibly 
have discovered them, as they packed them- 
selves side by side as closely as herrings in a 
barrel to avoid being discovered. 



28o THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

It was evening when I emerged from the 
long range of Touchwood Hills, which in 
days gone by supplied shelter and hiding 
places for Crees and Assiniboines in time of 
war. Under this cover they manoeuvred their 
forces in preparation for their stealthy, early 
morning attacks. Just as I was about to 
squat on the greensward to enjoy a meal 
preparatory to a moonlight drive over the 
long ^'pheasant plain," I suddenly espied a 
solitary Indian approaching, carrying a long 
gun on his shoulder. He had evidently 
emerged out of a swamp or thicket hard by. 
I awaited his approach, and after the usual 
preliminary savage greeting we shook hands. 
He was gaudily dressed, but gaunt in appear- 
ance, and stood before me straight and 
dignified as a soldier before his superior 
officer. He had regular features, a sallow 
complexion, and an unvarying smile. As he 
cast a scrutinizing glance at me, my horses, 
my buggy, my Winchester, and breech-loading 
shot-gun which lay in it, his face for a moment 
assumed a hard, defiant expression, which I 
shall not easily forget. It was only a flash, 
however, and the next instant there was nothing 
but the perfect calm and cunning composure 
of his race. His movements were remarkably 



THE RETURN JOURNEY. 281 

quick, and betrayed his southern origin. At 
first he professed not to understand Cree, but 
after drinking a pot of strong tea, and picking 
the bones of two large ducks, he changed his 
mind, and began to converse freely in that 
language, though with a strange accent. As 
we squatted on the grass together I found 
myself distrusting my savage visitor more 
and more, but I showed nothing, and kept 
outwardly as cool as a cucumber. I was 
quite conscious, however, that although a 
few miles nearer civilisation than I had been 
recently, I still carried my life in my hand, and 
the slightest mistake might deprive me of it. 

*' Where is your camp ? " I began. 

*' I don't know. I lost my way, being in a 
strange country," was his answer. 

'' Do you know the chiefs Red Cloud and 
Sitting Bull.^" I queried. 

** I have heard of them," was the curt reply. 

" Did you know of the battle the latter fought 
with the Whites last year ? " 

He shook his head, indicative of ignorance 
and innocence alike. But upon my pressing 
him he admitted, under my promise not to 
betray him or single him out for punishment 
in any way, that he had taken a prominent 
part in the battle of Rosebud Valley. Still 



282 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

he pointed out diplomatically, that if it was 
aggressive in form it was defensive in essence, 
being in defence of their wives and children. 
The reader will recall the account already 
given of that atrocious event. It only added 
to my horror at the recollection of it when my 
savage guest (possibly desiring to unnerve and 
terrify me) exhibited the fabric of an inner 
garment composed entirely of the scalps of his 
slain foes. Little did I guess that he was even 
then counting on adding mine to his collection. 
We parted on the best of terms, shaking 
hands most amicably, and I drove off, feeling 
somewhat glad to be rid of him. I was 
barely twenty yards away — when, whiz ! and 
my wide felt hat fell down before me with a 
bullet-hole in the brim. Drawing rein quick 
as lightning, I grasped my Winchester, and 
turned just in time to see my treacherous foe 
disappear among the tall reeds in the little 
hollow out of which I had drawn the water 
for the tea which we had drunk together. 
Instinctively, and without a thought, I put 
my rifle to my shoulder, and planted three 
consecutive bullets into the spot where he 
had disappeared, and drove on as if nothing 
had happened. So much for the ingenuous 
native who had assured me that he had not so 



THE RETURN JOURNEY. 283 

much as a single charge of ammunition in his 
possession. I felt the more indignant at his 
ingratitude that I had always had reason to 
regard myself as in a somewhat special degree 
the friend of the Indians. I had taken a very 
great interest in them, had made a constant 
practice of treating them kindly, and had 
secured the regard and affection of many 
individuals, and I think the confidence of the 
tribes generally. Perhaps it is most charitable 
to suppose that this particular savage, being 
of a southern tribe, did not know me. But 
the reader will scarcely blame me in the 
circumstances for putting it out of his power 
to mend his faulty aim. 

I had considerable cause for anxiety as I 
pursued my way on that memorable night. 
For one thing, there was the risk of being 
followed by other braves who had been 
ambushed close by. For another, I soon 
became aware that a tremendous prairie fire 
was raging across the whole face of the 
Pheasant Plains. It rolled before a gale of 
wind almost athwart the trail, and lit up the 
whole heavens with a burning glow. There 
was no need to ask myself which danger I 
feared most. Nobody who had ever seen a 
prairie fire would have any doubt about that. 



284 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

It rushed across the plain, swifter than a race- 
horse, rolling now sky high, now low down, 
seizing on everything that came in its way, 
high dry reeds, withered long grass, bushes, 
everything, consuming all with crackling and 
roaring. A prairie fire always reminded me 
of the Scriptural scene when Abraham "looked 
towards Sodom and Gomorrah, and lo ! the 
smoke of the country went up as the smoke 
of a furnace." I hastily set fire to a hillock, 
and when that had burnt over the top, there 
I took up my position with my buggy and my 
two horses. By lying down flat on my face 
with a wet blanket over my head, I managed 
miraculously to escape suffocation. 

Such are the joys of travelling. I do not 
imagine they would appeal to everybody, or 
even to many. The traveller, like the poet, 
must be born, not made. And even of those 
who fancy they would like to travel, most 
will find their best satisfaction in doing so in 
a good library, with plenty of maps and a 
comfortable armchair. 

At 12.30 A.M. the wind dropped suddenly, 
and in the dead calm the fire subsided. I spent 
the night rifle in hand, listening with a beating 
heart for footsteps. I would have travelled 
all night, but in the haste and confusion of 



THE RETURN JOURNEY. 285 

securing myself against the fire I had entirely 
lost the trail, and could not even remember on 
which side of the hillock it lay. It was a long 
and anxious night, the most eventful of all my 
career, and at the first streak of dawn I gladly 
left the scene of my lonely vigil, not even 
waiting to brew myself a pot of tea,— that 
most excellent Souchong imported by my Com- 
pany, and unequalled outside of the Celestial 
Empire itself. I drove on in haste, and 
reached Musk Rat Creek without further 
incident. 

At Portage La Prairie I passed under a 
triumphal arch, erected by the people in honour 
of the first visit of Canada's Governor-General, 
the Earl of Dufferin, to this virgin province of 
the prairies. His Excellency was in a most 
humorous mood when I heard him, and I 
recollect the enjoyment— and the brogue— with 
which he told a story of the days of his wooing. 
One evening he employed a carman— a fellow- 
countryman — to drive him to Captain Hamil- 
ton's residence. On the way he chatted with 
the man, and heard, to his great amusement, 
that pretty Miss Hamilton, bejabbers, was soon 
to be married to an *' uncommonly ugly man 
with a glass eye." " Ochone, ochone, it's 
meself that's sorry," said Patrick. Both Lord 



286 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

and Lady Dufferin evidently thoroughly enjoyed 
the reminiscence. 

It was at Portage La Prairie that Blackie 
showed signs of giving out. Taken by himself, 
he was negatively good, but by the side of the un- 
tiring Rock he was positivelybad, for a quick and 
long journey. Indeed, a few miles further on, 
his abandonment became inevitable. Not so 
with noble Rock, for his last day he covered sixty 
miles, having apparently abundant stamina left. 

I arrived in Winnipeg early in October, after 
an unusually circuitous journey lasting two 
years, one month, and thirteen days, having 
travelled the last six hundred miles in eight and 
a half days, and thus broken the record. During 
all this time I had lived as a primitive nomad. 
Out of the seven hundred and seventy-six days 
and nights, three hundred and ninety-three 
were passed in the open air, with only the 
heavens for shelter. And of the eighteen years 
which I passed in the country, six and three- 
quarters were passed in this manner. Summer 
and winter temperatures vary very considerably, 
from 80° below zero to 120° above it. But 
owing to the dryness of the air there is com- 
paratively little discomfort experienced, even 
v/hen the temperature is very low. The cold 
certainly strikes one much more by its effect 



THE RETURN JOURNEY. 287 

on the thermometer than on the human frame. 
I do not vaunt any special physical powers of 
mine in rough endurance. The circumstances 
merely show how fully man can adapt himself 
to circumstances, and even vie with the wild 
animals, provided he accepts the proper con- 
ditions. Nor have I suffered any special incon- 
venience in health — indeed, a healthier man 
it would be hard to find in any place or any 
country, thank God ! 

The stride that Winnipeg had made in my 
absence was to me simply marvellous. Until 
a short time ago the country was unknown to 
geographers, unknown, in fact, to all except a 
few stray hunters and trappers in the employ 
of my Company. Now civilization had fairly 
laid hold upon the east, and was beginning her 
westward progress. It is said that ''trade 
follows the flag"; and the fact that our aims 
are neither territorial, nor military, nor politi- 
cal, but economic and commercial, seems diffi- 
cult for foreign nations to grasp. The truth 
of Napoleon's phrase, ''a nation of shop- 
keepers," is borne in upon us as we study the 
expansion of our Empire. Gold digging and 
sheep farming laid the foundations of our 
colonies in Australia and South Africa. India 
is ours through concessions to a trading 



288 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

company. And last, but not least, our trans- 
atlantic dominion had its germ in the fur- 
trading industry of my own Company. In the 
Canadian prairies in which I roamed there is 
room for at least one hundred million souls to 
live and thrive in peace. From Winnipeg in 
the east to the fort of the Rocky Mountains 
is a distance of one thousand miles, and from 
the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude to the 
watershed of the North Saskatchewan about 
three hundred and sixty miles, the area thus 
included amounting to three hundred and thirty 
thousand square miles, or two hundred and ten 
millions acres. The greater part of this enor- 
mous area offers no impediment to immediate 
cultivation, being open prairie and ready for 
the plough. For countless generations it has 
been the haunt of buffalo, and the soil is rich 
in animal and other manure. It is indeed a 
poor man's country. The Rocky Mountains 
form a natural wall dividing the rich mining 
districts of the western sea-board from the 
central plains, which offer the best source of 
the country's food supply. West of the moun- 
tains the soil is untamable by the plough ; east, 
although there are rich coal deposits, the chief 
use of the land is in the raising of wheat and 
other food produce. With capital and labour 



THE RETURN JOURNEY. 289 

uniting to open up its wealth, there is no limit 
to the productiveness and prosperity to which 
the North-West may hopefully look forward. 
During all those years, it is but fair to add, 
I was tenacious of life as well as of purpose. 
After deliberate consideration I severed my 
connection with my honourable Company 
when I thought I had exhausted its possi- 
bilities, i.e., promotions similar to those given 
by the old Company, no longer in existence. 

A 71 revoir, but not adieu, to all my old com- 
rades. After playing for eighteen years my 
part in this little drama, I considered it my 
sacred duty throughout the business to display 
my full share of the wisdom of the serpent. 
On the great hospitality and gentlemanly 
bearing they have always displayed towards 
myself personally, there is no need to descant. 

Henceforth, ''the condition which high 
friendship demands is ability to do without 
it." For truly, I look upon it thus, that the 
more strength and magnanimity one displays 
at such a time, the more one desists from 
uneasy insistence in drawing comrades and 
friends back to old remembrance — in short, 
the better able we show ourselves to live with- 
out it, the more our friends and comrades will 
be drawn towards us in after years. 

s.K. u 



CHAPTER XIV. 

A VISIT TO SCOTLAND, ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND 
THE UNITED STATES. 

•' When silent Time wi' lichtly foot 

Had trod on twenty years, 
I sought again my native land 

Wi' mony hopes and fears ; 
Wha kens gin the dear friends I left 

May still continue mine, 
Or gin I e'er again shall taste 

The joys o' auld lang syne ? " 

After a few days in Winnipeg I stepped 
on board the steamer Minnesota, bound for 
Fisher's Landing, on the Red Lake River, on 
13th October, 1877, the exact day and month 
on which I had arrived at the Red River 
eighteen years before. There were many 
passengers, notably the lovely twin daughters 
of the Hon. A. Morris, of the Beardy inter- 
view already described, attended by the 
Lieutenant-Governor's private secretary. 

My good friend J . A. Grahame, Esq. , our chief 
commissioner, was also on board, and last, but 
not least, our inveterate opponent Dr. Schultz, 



IN CANADA. 291 

now a member of the Federal House of 
Commons at Ottawa, where he represented an 
Indian constituency, whose lands have nearly 
all become the property of Pharaoh's. That 
bone of contention, the Company's charter, 
being now out of the way, the doctor was more 
amiably disposed, feeling no doubt that he 
had conquered, and we made a merry trio, 
past disagreements being happily forgotten. 
Time in its flight had sapped the vigour and 
vitality of this son of Thor, and there were 
evident signs of something wrong with the 
respiratory organs. It was, however, quite 
evident that his ambition was still alive and 
unsatisfied. 

Above the American boundary the course of 
the Red River is very tortuous, and our progress 
through Dakota wasslow, so thattheboat did not 
reach her destination until the i6th. On that 
day I had my first railway ride, which brought me 
into Duluth, on St. Louis Bay, at the west end 
of Lake Superior, and the extreme eastern limit 
of the prairie country. High above the present 
margin of the lake rises the terrace, five hundred 
feet high, which has been left dry by the sub- 
sidence of the waters, and at the foot runs the 
narrow margin of beach at the present level. 
The terrace is broken by a river which flows 

u 2 



292 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

into the Bay, and on one side of the river is a 
flat reach of low, swampy ground ; on the 
other the ground rises sharply into a bluff. 
On this high land the houses of Duluth are 
perched, like goats grazing on a steep hillside 
— an arrangement one sees at Quebec, at Bar 
Harbour, and at some small places in the 
English counties of Cornwall and Devon, but 
scarcely anywhere else. From here the steamer 
Manitoba conveyed us to Fort William, once 
the headquarters of our bitter opponents the 
North-West Company, who had made it a 
really formidable fortress, with regular works 
and a heavy armament, so as to terrorise their 
savage allies and dependants. At Michipicoten 
Fort we took on board a Mr. Bell, who, with 
a surveying party, had been examining the 
natural resources of James Bay. A run 
through the splendid American locks of Sault 
St. Marie, and we entered Lake Huron, 
journeying then to Port Huron, River St. Clair, 
Toronto, and Ottawa. 

On the day upon which I left Winnipeg, 
Mr. Bannatyne, a member of Parliament of the 
Federal House at Ottawa, kindly asked if he 
could do anything to help me on " entering the 
realms of civilisation." I thanked him, but 
could think of nothing. He insisted, however, 



IN CANADA. 293 

on giving me a letter of introduction* to the 
Premier, the Hon. A. McKenzie, who was his 
warm friend, and who took a keen interest in 
all that concerned the Far West. He was 
kind enough to add that he knew of no other 
person so well qualified to satisfy him in this 
respect as myself. 

On reaching Ottawa I duly presented myself 
and my letter, and after a few preliminary 
forms of etiquette I received intimation at the 
British Lion Hotel, where I had taken up my 
quarters, that the Premier was ready to receive 
me. This was my first encounter with the 
man who virtually ruled Canada from the 
Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. He was a 
spare man, of medium height, with a well-set 
head, and spoke in a fatherly manner, with 
a strong reminiscence in his accent of his 
native Perthshire hills. ^' I am glad to meet 
you, Mr. Campbell," he said. " I know 
Mr. Bannatyne very well. I have seen several 
very interesting quotations regarding your 
travels from the Manitoba Free Press and the 
Toronto Globe and Mail. It is quite evident 
that we have in our North-West Territory a 
country of vast possibilities. Yes, our duty 

* This letter of introduction will be found in full in the 
Appendix. 



294 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

now is to get those vast prairies stocked with 
good hardy settlers. You are on your way to 
Scotland, I understand. Well, you know the 
importance of the country over which you have 
been travelling for these two years. Do please 
impress that upon the people you come in 
contact with. Many hard-working people in 
the old country would be glad to know of such 
a place where they could become prosperous 
and enjoy a free life." 

Then we ran our fingers over an old map of 
the country, together with a rough sketch of 
my own. I ventured to suggest that the 
Canadian Pacific Railway, then under survey, 
was surely out of place, being at least two 
hundred miles too far north, and that the 
North-West capital should be on the Bow 
River, near the Rocky Mountains, instead ot 
on Battle River. If on the former river, I 
added, ranchers would homestead round it, the 
district being much frequented by buffaloes, and 
in every way rich and fertile. The projected 
railway should start from Winnipeg and go 
directly over the plains to the first pass in the 
Rockies without diverging so far north as the 
survey before us indicated. 

The Premier listened to every word with 
attention, and looked at me in some surprise. 



IN CANADA. 295 

*' What if war should break out between 
England and America?" he said. ''In that 
case the further the railway is from the 
boundary the better." This he regarded as 
the most important point, and I of course 
insisted no further. He presented me with a 
book containing his public speeches made 
during a visit to the old country the year 
before, and we parted. 

This man, whose blameless and honourable 
life has been one long record of devotion to 
Canada, had been wholly the architect of his 
own fortunes. He was a born orator, but the 
want of early education stood in his way as a 
politician in the high sphere to which he had 
attained. When I saw him his Government 
term of office had almost expired, and an 
arduous campaign was in view. His opponent, 
Sir John A. Macdonald, was an astute politician, 
of inexhaustible fertility of resource and untiring 
energy. He saw that some amusement must 
be provided for Canada just then, something 
to keep her busy, and he was quite willing 
to take the leading role in the play. The 
country was a victim to contradictory cravings, 
a symptom of her awakening life : a craving 
for Free Trade ; a craving for a " national 
policy" (though no nation yet awhile) ; a craving 



296 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

for any new and violent emotion. She wished 
to assure her interests and gratify her imagina- 
tion at the same time. "J. A.," however, was 
an old campaigner, and there was no fear ol 
any yielding or any indecision on his part. 
His unfortunate association with the ** Pacific 
scandal" was already almost forgotten; and, in 
view of his distinguished record of political 
service, he was almost entirely reinstated in 
the good opinion of his fellow-countrymen. 
I gathered from the Premier in my conversa- 
tion with him that he was going to the country 
on a Free Trade platform. I told him bluntly 
that he could not carry it. It was quite 
premature in a country so young and with 
an enormous financial burden already on its 
shoulders by the acquisition of our vast 
territory. 

From Ottawa I travelled to Montreal, the 
chief commercial centre of Canada, and once 
the pride of Louis of France. I must, how- 
ever, leave it undescribed. Poor France ! 
It was not her outward enemies, but her 
own unstable mind, that lost her this glorious 
country. 

Wonderful progress this Canada has made, 
when it is remembered that no more than 
three centuries have passed since Jacques 



IN CANADA. 297 

Cartier, of St. Malo, sailed up the St. Lawrence 
and took possession of the picturesque penin- 
sula of Gaspe in the name of Francis I. Truly 
this part of Canada is full of attraction, of 
inspiration, particularly on the historical side, 
for the future fiction writers. As it comes 
through the mellowing mists of the years, a 
wonderful, many-coloured tissue of stirring 
incident and striking adventure, there is no 
more fascinating and absorbing story than 
that of the French regime in Canada, from its 
beginning in the sixteenth century to its 
splendid, heroically tragic close on the Plains 
of Abraham in 1759. 

Hardly less replete with suggestively pictur- 
esque material are the narratives of the early 
explorers and pioneers, Jesuit missionaries, 
traders, and fur hunters, coureurs de bois who 
penetrated the pathless wilderness of the 
interior, set their frail barques afloat on the 
great lakes, discovered the father of waters, 
the mighty Mississippi, and passed beyond the 
barrier of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific 
Ocean. 

On 8th November I was in Quebec, and, 
like the Greeks of old, I was ready to shout, 
" Thalatta ! Thalatta ! " It was more than 
eighteen years since I had seen the sea, far 



298 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

away in the Arctic North, and now there was 
something vivid, poignant, indescribable, in the 
sensations with which I again looked upon it. 
The essential spirit of all the tasks and 
struggles, all the successes and failures, all 
the outer incident and inner development, 
of these years seemed concentrated in that 
moment when the smell of the ocean, though 
still many miles away, suddenly brought back 
the sensations of my far boyhood, and showed 
me, as it were, in an isolated picture the life 
that had come between. Trifling incidents 
sometimes mark an era in a man's life. That 
first breath of the sea formed the colophon to 
the principal chapter in mine. 

As for Quebec, she has little to tell us to 
the credit of her m.other-country, though many 
of her children still keep for her a loyal corner 
in their hearts. Her wonderful rock citadel 
might well seem a leisurely, a restful haven, safe 
from all the powers of waste and ruin. But 
the writing was on the wall, and such gallant 
sons of France as Biencourt, De Chastes, La 
Verendrige, and poor Lally might fight and 
toil and die without a glance or a word of 
thanks from the revellers at Versailles or St. 
Cloud. Such men gave to France nearly half 
a continent, but she despised the gift, so fate 



IN CANADA. 299 

took it back again. Britain got it, though the 
life of brave James Wolfe was a high price to 
pay, and as I stood, hat in hand, on the Heights 
of Abraham, the British flag was floating over 
the citadel. I found monuments to the 
English Wolfe, the French Montcalm, and the 
American Richard Montgomery, who fell here 
in 1775 while heading an American storming 
party during the War of Independence. Thus 
Quebec has its threads of connection with the 
history of three great nations. It has too 
other associations with the greater and older 
world beyond its boundaries. In the Pro- 
testant cemetery is the grave of Major Thomas 
Scott, the brother of Sir Walter Scott. The 
mother of Napoleon III. sprang from a Quebec 
family. The father of our beloved Queen 
Victoria was a resident of the fort. And, as a 
point of special interest to myself, I recalled 
that Lady Matheson, the wife of the proprietor 
of my native island, was born here. In the 
early days of the colony, Abbe de Fenelon, 
half-brother of the famous author of Telemachus, 
lived in Quebec. And Audubon was once a 
visitor on St. Louis Road, collecting data and 
leaving his name to an avenue on St. James 
le Moine's Place. 

Thus rich in its associations, Quebec is rich 



300 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

too in natural beauty. As I stood beside the 
flagstaff and saw the soft light on the grey 
walls of the citadel, and bright gleams of 
sunshine on the spires and windows of the 
buildings sloping to the river, the white cottages 
of the outlying straggling villages, and the 
purple haze over sailing boat and ocean liner, 
in which I was to sail on the morrow, I 
thought indeed that one might wander far and 
not find so fair a scene as in this ancient 
fortress of the St. Lawrence. What most 
surprised me was however it happened that we 
conquered it at all. But General Wolfe sent 
his troops up a path that the French thought 
was practically invincible, to the Heights of 
Abraham. If there had been a corporal's 
guard at the top of the path, our men would 
never have reached the heights. When he 
reached the top Wolfe was without cannon, 
and Montcalm had only to keep within his 
defences in order to be safe from assault. But 
the French general issued forth from those, 
and fought the enemy in the open plain, with 
the result that he was defeated, and Quebec 
taken. 

General Wolfe, undoubtedly, was a brave 
and skilful general, but had it not been for the 
follies on the part of his foe that he hardly 



IN SCOTLAND. 



301 



could have anticipated, he would have had to 
give up all hope of taking this enormously 
strong fortress I was now examining, and his 
name would not have stood out in history as 
one of our greatest warriors. 

On gth November the steamship Polynesia 
steamed out of the river, and the fortress sank out 
of sight beneath the western horizon. On the 
20th I landed in Glasgow, and on 13th 
December in Inverness. On 7th February, 
1878, I crossed the Minch to Stornoway in the 
steamship Ferret, where I learned that the 
''titular governor of the Lewis," who treated me 
so severely in my '' herd-loon " days, had been 
dismissed from office and struck off the roll of 
solicitors, and narrowly saved from still further 
unpleasant consequences. I had no wish to 
be vindictive, but the memory of his unkindness 
had long been sore in my boyish heart. It 
struck me strangely that the first news to greet 
me on my return should be of his disgrace, 
which I received with sorrow. On the gth I 
reached my old home, Ness, and after an 
absence of nineteen years found I had nearly 
forgotten my mother tongue. I may say with 
Edmund, ** The wheel is come full round; I 
am here." What a havoc time had wrought ! 
My second sister now lived in the old house all 



302 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

alone of us. To me it seemed infinitely lonely, 
infinitely sad, as lonely as the great prairie 
itself and much more sad. History repeats 
itself. Things turn themselves as of yore, 
only they cannot bring back ''the touch of 
the vanished hand," nor ''the sound of the 
voice that is still." The minister, the miller- 
elder, and other heroes of my so-called school 
days had passed over to the majority, and 
I found a generation had grown up which 
" knew not Joseph." To all outward appear- 
ance my native parish had remained during 
these two decades in statu quo, only things 
seemed smaller than they did. The granite 
cliffs of the Butt seemed to have sunk into the 
Atlantic at least two hundred feet, and the 
rivers were but silver threads. Well, the prairie 
is wider than the Lewis, but not dearer ; 
there are memories in the brook that ran by 
my mother's door that all the vast waters of 
the big Saskatchewan could not wash away. 

" Everybody should graduate in the uni- 
versity of Paris," said Disraeli. So to Paris 
I went, though not, alas ! to the university. 
To visit Paris to good purpose demands a 
preHminary education, except perhaps the 
Exhibition, which was being held at the date 
of my visit. That spectacle was to me very 



IN FRANCE. 303 

wonderful, intoxicating the imagination. After 
so long in the inhospitable northern wilderness 
I found it indescribably gorgeous, fantastic, 
fairylike. 

How to secure and bring away all the varied 
impressions which a review of its history 
suggests — the Paris of Richelieu, of the 
Louis', of Madame EHzabeth, of Marie 
Antoinette ; Paris imperial, with a Buonaparte 
at its head ; Paris republican, with the Royal 
princes plotting round the corner — that was too 
great a task for a passing visit. France has been 
a republic for thirty years, yet in that soil of sur- 
prises the fortunes and characters of the princes 
of Bourbon and Orleans may well be observed 
with interest. I watched a military review in 
honour of the Shah of Persia (Nasir-ed-Din) 
at Chalons, whence Napoleon III. set out to 
meet disaster at Sedan. I had gone to France 
with a certain prejudice against the French 
army as compared with the German, but the 
review changed my opinion. The physique 
of the men seemed excellent, and their faces 
wore a look of endurance and determination, 
as if, conscious of lost ground in the past, 
they had resolved to recover their prestige 
and their provinces. They were splendidly 
equipped too both with metal and with teams. 



304 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

I saw all the sights : Notre Dame, with its 
famous tapis des souverains, the finest Gobelins 
work in the world ; the boulevards ; the Sainte 
Chapelle ; the Palais de Justice ; the Pantheon 
and Invalides, where Buonaparte is buried ; 
the Place de la Concorde ; the Champs Elysees ; 
the Palais de Tlndustrie ; the Louvre ; Ver- 
sailles ; St. Cloud ; St. Denis ; the resting-place 
of the kings, and the Hall of Mirrors, with 
its two hundred and forty-two feet of polished 
floor and its unique views over the long 
gardens ; the Opera ; the wonderful tower of 
St. Jacques la Boucherie ; and lastly the CEil 
de Boeuf, which students of Carlyle and of 
the Revolution know so well, and in which so 
many public mischiefs had their origin. 

I found it difficult to explain to myself why 
France had lost her North American posses- 
sions. Her colonial " sphere of influence " 
from Senegal to Siam was still great. Do 
civilised nations lose the courage of their 
primitive ancestors ? Undoubtedly the love 
of la gloire is strong in the French, and 
they have a dash and a chivalry far removed 
from cowardice. The famous householder who 
stayed quietly in bed when burglars were in the 
house, because he "would rather be a coward 
than a corpse," had no French blood in his 



IN LONDON. 305 

veins. It seems that life has increased in value, 
and in imperilling it, either in war or travel or 
other adventures in colonisation, the nation is 
staking more. Even the high-strung sensitive- 
ness of a cultivated race may sometimes tell 
against it in conflict with ruder temperaments. 
It seems indeed in the struggle for life that that 
race most prospers which, by constant practice 
in meeting hazards, trains itself out of fear. 
But there are statesmen who find dangers in 
over-colonisation. Land-hunger may become 
land-fever, and nations have been known to 
suffer from land-indigestion. Possibly Canada 
was overtough a morsel for France. 

In London I went, of course, to the House 
of Commons, honoured by the invitation and 
escort of the nephew of England's greatest Lord 
Chancellor, Sir George Campbell. General 
Roberts had just made his famous march on 
Candahar, and Lord Beaconsfield was fresh 
from the Berlin Congress with ''Peace with 
Honour " in his satchel. I had long ardently 
wished to hear Mr. Gladstone speak, and on 
that evening my wish was gratified. I listened 
to him for an hour and a half as he stood there 
on the left of Mr. Speaker Brand, and felt that 
I had never heard oratory before. It was 
amazing, enthralling, exquisite. The next day 

S.K. X 



3o6 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

Sir George accompanied me to the House of 
Lords, where I found MacCallum Mhore him- 
self, or MacCaileem Mor, son of Big Collin, 
Duke of Argyle, upon his feet, briskly 
denouncing the Government for the mas- 
sacre of Balak ordered by the Sultan, Abdul 
Hamid. 

There was something almost comically 
bellicose about his appearance in debate — 
"the Rupert of debate" — the small figure, 
with lifted head, crowned with a crest of waving 
hair, rising, as some thought, like the plume 
of a Gaelic chiefs bonnet, and, as others saw 
it, like the comb of a fighting-cock. While 
coming south, early in June, the Duchess 
lay dead in London, and much sorrow was 
felt in the west coast of her native land. 
And an innkeeper at Oban expressed himself 
to me, while talking about the noble family, 
thus : " Weel, ye see, the Duke is in a vera 
deeficult position: his pride o' birth prevents 
his associating with cordiality among men of 
his ain intellect ; and his pride of intellect 
equally keeps him from associating pleasantly 
with men o' his ain birth." Unquestionably 
the descendant of Earl Archibald, who fell 
at Flodden field, and of the unfortunate first 
Marquis of Argyle, executed at the Cross of 



IN LONDON. 307 

Edinburgh in 1661, the chief head of my clan, 
was a striking personality. 

Lord Beaconsfield rose for his Government, 
and said: '* I look to the individual character 
of that human being as of vast importance. 
He is a man whose every impulse is good. 
However great the difficulties he may have 
to encounter, however various may be the 
impulses that may ultimately control him, his 
first impulses are always good. He is not a 
tyrant ; he is not dissolute. He is not abject ; 
he is not corrupt." Such was the graceful 
panegyric on the Assassin of Turkey, pro- 
nounced by the man whom Daniel O'Connell 
once described as "the lineal descendant of 
the impenitent thief who died on the cross." 

As for London itself, what can I say of the 
marvel of its throbbing life ? I looked at it 
from the dome of St. Paul's, and thought 
how many notable Scots had here earned the 
oatmeal upon which to cultivate Hterature 
comfortably — Murray, Macmillan, Blackwood, 
Chambers, and the rest. I looked at it from 
the Monument, and overwhelmed myself in 
statistics, wonderful enough to me at the time, 
though small compared to the facts of to-day. 
The Lord Mayor, notwithstanding his high- 
sounding title, rules over but a single square 

X 2 



3o8 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

mile of territory ; but that square mile con- 
tains the financial pulse and heart of the world, 
and is the richest possession in the universe. 
Yet we are told on high authority the day 
is coming when the archaeologically-disposed 
New Zealander will stand on Westminster 
Bridge and sketch the ruins of St. Paul's. 

I passed on to Edinburgh, once the centre 
of the intellect of Britain. Time was when 
Sidney Smith and De Quincey were attracted 
to the home of Dugald Stewart and Mackintosh, 
of Cockburn and Scott and the Blackwoods, and 
when Jeffrey and Wilson and Brougham formed 
a literary tribunal which could crown a man or 
slay him. Now, alas ! Scottish lairds and 
Scottish nobles complete their education on 
the banks of the Isis. 

So I had seen my native land, and, my tour 
over, the end of September found me snugly 
on board the S.S. Devonia, bound for New York. 
In the saloon or on the after-deck of an 
Anchor line steamship steering west, there can 
be seen at this season of the year more of the 
American lounging class than can easily be 
found anywhere else out of the States. Not- 
withstanding this lounging habit, and the here- 
ditary vice of inquisitiveness, I found them 
very pleasant, free and open as their native 



IN NEW YORK AND OTTAWA. 309 

air. With Bunker's Hill in view we steamed 
into the shallow water which narrows into 
Sandy Hook, and on 5th October we were in 
New York harbour. 

Wall Street was a confusion of tongues. 
The failure of the City of Glasgow Bank was 
the eagerly-discussed topic of the day. The 
great East River suspension bridge was then 
in course of construction, and on each bank 
lay great blocks of hard red granite from the 
quarries of home. Scotland has done her part 
in the work of empire-making. She has laid 
the foundation of a good many of the wonders 
of the modern world. New York was in a 
sunshiny mood, and I left it almost praying 
for smoked glass, lest, like Milton, I should be 
"blasted with excess of light." 

In Ottawa I found that all my political 
prophecies had come true. The McKenzie 
administration had gone to pieces on the rock 
of Free Trade — an excellent thing, only pre- 
mature. Sir J. A. Macdonald was undoubtedly 
the more accomplished politician of the two 
leaders. He was a curious mixture of rashness, 
patience, and prudent calculation, and he 
believed in his star. He had a knack of 
twisting the Canadians round at his will, and 
an even more useful knack of finding pleasant 



310 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

ways out of difficult positions. He got round 
people, deputations, nations, and played with 
them and used them for his own ends, and 
kept on good terms with them all the time. 
He gave Canada what it wanted, a toy — a 
catchword. Beaconsfield came home pro- 
claiming *' Peace with Honour." Macdonald 
proclaimed the ** National Policy," and set all 
Canada shouting with delight. Beaconsfield 
advised the Queen to style herself Empress of 
India. Macdonald entreated the Princess Louise 
to come to Ottawa to win Canadian hearts. He 
was a man to be studied rather than criticised. 

The ex-Premier, on the other hand, was an 
unassuming man, remarkable chiefly for a 
sound acuteness of mind, a great knowledge 
of hum.an nature, and a considerable fund of 
common sense, which he applied in his own 
frank unconventional way to the questions that 
came before him. 

I do not know that either of these gentlemen 
wanted these appreciations written, and my 
fear is that when we meet in heaven the}^ may 
be displeased. One thing they will not deny, 
and that is, that the work of a Prime Minister 
even in a colony is arduous. No ordinary man 
can think of it without a shudder, or be other 
than devoutly thankful that the risk of being 



IN THE WESTERN STATES. 311 

called upon to take this office is comparatively 
small. 

Making my way gradually westwards by the 
Lakes, I stopped at Chicago. Of course, the 
stockyards were the first objects of interest. 
They can hardly, however, be described as 
pleasure grounds. Eighty per cent, of the 
Chicagoans tell you, '* Oh no, I have never 
been to the yards myself, but you ought to 
see them before you leave the city." It may 
be added that the other twenty per cent, 
are employed in or about these stockyards. 
Chicago was unknown until one day towards 
the middle of the century some one slaughtered 
and packed the first lot of cattle and hogs. 
To-day the stockyards cover miles of ground. 
From the top of a Chicago '* sky-scraper " the 
place must look like a town of cattle-pens. 
When I was there (1878) they had thirty miles 
of feeding-troughs and fifty miles of railway 
connecting the yards with the outer world. 
Six millions of hogs, three of cattle, and three 
of sheep found their way into these yards 
annually. The men, wearing broad soft hats 
and riding on wiry nags, gave a certain pic- 
turesqueness to the scene, but the atmosphere 
was, on the whole, just a trifle '^ bluggy." 
Those who made their fortune here preferred 



312 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

to have a retreat in another suburb. Though 
I did not see any machines into which a hog 
went squeaHng at one end to come out sausages 
at the other, I certainly saw enough to convince 
me that if these yards were by any miracle to 
bob suddenly out of existence, the effect on the 
world's feeding arrangements would be serious. 

At St. Paul's a spare, nervous man joined 
the train. '' I guess we shall reach Winnipeg 
in a month," he remarked, with a strong 
American accent. I was much impressed 
with the extraordinary transparency of his 
slender frame. Seldom, I thought, had a 
body more fragile encased so energetic and 
active a spirit. He was exceedingly frank 
and talkative, full of jokes and anecdotes, a 
welcome companion on a lonely journey, and 
we soon became fast friends. Here also Mr. 
Wilham Hardisty, of my Company, joined me. 
'' My name is Anderson," said the American, 
*' so you see I am a bit Scotch, as I take you 
to be." Little did I guess how soon the bright 
sunshine which was about him was to be 
darkened. 

The railway to the north not being yet 
finished, it took a week by waggon, etc., to 
reach the village of Emerson in the extreme 
north of the States. I had travelled two 



IN THE WESTERN STATES. 313 

thousand miles upon their soil. A magnificent 
heritage indeed the Pilgrim Fathers left to 
their descendants. And who can predict its 
future ? Nothing is too great to hope for it. 
Let but this youthful giant among the nations 
set herself to protect by justice what has been 
won by prayer and by the sword, and then we 
shall see what may be done in time to come 
by a nation armed with all the resources of 
wealth and civilisation, and sustained by a 
Christian ideal. 

Mr. Anderson and I put up at the same hotel 
in Emerson, a tiny village standing out lone 
and distinct on the prairie, I to await a con- 
veyance to Winnipeg, he to await his destiny. 
Here we enjoyed a maximum of luxury at a 
minimum of cost, as the villages clustered on 
each side of the boundary line were by stealth 
doing their best to rob each other of their 
customers. We beguiled the time in various 
ways, the most novel being in teaching me to 
lounge *' American fashion." 

One night, whilst I was reading in this new 
attitude, my friend hurriedly entered and 
began nervously pacing the room. Halting 
suddenly behind a door which was just being 
opened, he shouted at the top of his voice, 
'' Up hands, or you are a dead man ! " A 



314 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

shot, a whiz, and a bullet had grazed the bridge 
of my nose, and entered the wall at my side. 
The '^ American fashion" had saved my life. 
Had I been in my usual posture I should have 
been the first of the trio to enter eternity. A 
succession of shots followed, and Anderson 
lay on the floor quivering in a pool of blood. 
The big, burly desperado who had followed 
him into the room was the last to fall, but 
soon he staggered over the chair my feet had 
rested on only a few seconds before. There 
he lay, blood spurting from mouth and nostrils 
like a buffalo bull. He who had killed many 
a man and feared none lay trembling now 
under the hand of death. Through the last 
spasm, the last quiver, the last convulsion, he 
firmly held the revolver, with finger on trigger, 
as if to guard him through the valley of the 
shadow. I was stupefied at the suddenness of 
it all. One ought, I suppose, to be astonished 
at no revelation of human tragedy, but I con- 
fess I was completely taken aback. He turned 
out to be the last of a gang of desperadoes, 
and the United States Government had offered 
ten thousand dollars for his capture, dead 
or alive. 

When I reached Winnipeg I found myself 
ready to say, like the Doge of Genoa in the 



IN THE WESTERN STATES. 315 

Palace of Versailles, ''What most surprises 
me about it is to see myself here." On the 
whole Winnipeg was a disappointment. It 
seemed given over to two classes of men, 
viz., the social derelict and the self-constituted 
derelict. The first were men of the Jean 
Valjean type, who, having made a mistake 
and been ostracised from society, had sought 
new fields, where they made herculean efforts 
to live down the past and become respectable 
citizens. The others were those who had not 
learned to make of failure a stepping-stone to 
higher things. Having left their country for 
their country's good, they were there under a 
change of sky without any change of purpose. 
These are the men who are not wanted in a 
new country. Most of them should be kept 
at home in an asylum for inebriates. The 
colonies of Great Britain want the best and 
most enterprising of her sons. 

But my task is done. Winnipeg is a city 
now, and it is not for me to enter upon a 
long account of civilised life. That would 
be encroaching upon the ground of civilised 
authors. 1 profess only to write — very 
imperfectly — of savage life. 

I have given merely an outline of my story, 
leaving out the beginning and the end, and 



3i6 THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA. 

cutting short the middle. Such as it is, I can 
only ask for it the reader's lenient judgment. 
Whatever of error he finds in it, let him, like 
the recording angel, ''drop a tear upon the 
damning page." I have given a simple record 
of a unique career, a career which has offered 
opportunities, perhaps, exceptionally wide and 
varied, of toiling tirelessly, of watching vigi- 
lantly, of reflecting deeply, of suffering patiently. 
These great solitudes have a speech and a 
language of their own, which need no telling, 
a wisdom calmer, perhaps, and wider than 
the wisdom of the hurrying multitude. One 
lesson at least they seem to teach — that 
out of suffering comes the serious mind, out 
of salvation the grateful heart, and out of 
deliverance faith — " Soft stillness and the 
night become the touches of sweet harmony." 

" Beannachd leibh" = Fare ye well. 



FINIS. 



APPENDIX A. 



A TALE OF INDIANS. 

The following appears in the Canadian 
Gazette of February 4th, 1893 : — 

You publish this item of news from Mani- 
toba : — '' The Indians of St. Peter's Reserve, 
near Winnipeg, have a little crisis of their 
own. An Indian named Asham was declared 
elected chief, but supporters of his rival, 
Henry Prince, have made an appeal to Ottawa 
to unseat Asham. One is a Baptist, and the 
other a member of the Church of England." 
Having been a titular chief for a number of 
years among the Indians in question, may I 
explain the true nature of this local quarrel ? 

When I first entered the Chartered Com- 
pany, the good chief Pequis was still alive, 
but shortly afterwards died at the ripe age of 
ninety-three years. He was one of the chiefs 
who signed, with the Earl of Selkirk, early in 
the century, the two-mile limit treaty relating 



3i8 APPENDIX A. 

to both sides of the Red River, and in token 
held a medal bearing the head-image of one 
of the Georges. He was, moreover, the Sir 
Wilfrid Lawson of that rum-drinking country ; 
but, despite his good and noble example, made 
far fewer converts than the untiring leader of 
Local Abstinence has done. That he had an 
intense aversion to strong drink may be 
gathered from the words he once used in 
speaking to me. He said he was more than 
surprised that human beings should be so 
fond of drinking what a dog would not taste. 
He died after a good innings, leaving two sons 
— the Henry Prince in question being the 
younger ; the elder, by another princess, had 
settled himself at Nettly Creek to await the 
chiefship. 

But events, alas ! proved contrary. Early 
in the sixties — in those halcyon days of entire 
monopoly, when my worthy Company could 
well afford it — we were given no less than a 
fortnight's holiday, i.e., a week at Christmas 
and one at the New Year — and business was 
all suspended at the time, in order, I presume, 
to give us ample opportunity of attending the 
countless balls and weddings which the happy 
season brought in its wake. About the middle 
of the festival season — and as I was studying 



APPENDIX A. 319 

hard the Indian language of my adopted 
country, so essential to a youth in my capacity 
— the door of my one-roomed house was thrown 
open, and in steps that would-be chief, and 
gave at the same time a note from the chief 
officer, written evidently under some difficulty — 
half Scotch and half English. With consider- 
able difficulty I succeeded, after the manner of 
hierography, in guessing that he was to be 
given so-and-so gratis — which I supplied, not 
thinking it was the last time I was ever to 
behold his face again. He would not be a 
convert to the father's principles, and he 
suffered the penalty that night, by being 
frozen to all eternity, after the doctrine of the 
Moravian missionary in Greenland ! 

Henry thus thought the road to the throne 
was clear for him, but the eldest son of the 
frozen ''Crown Prince" — after the manner 
of the European Courts, thought differently. 
Henry, moreover, had, as sole credentials and 
exchequer, the father's medal, and he held to 
it, and became chief solely on its strength, and 
without the voice of all and the consent of the 
whole, as is the Indian custom in choosing a 
" brave " to be their chief. Thus the friends 
of the dead '' Crown Prince," though silent, 
were always slow to follow him. He was, 



320 APPENDIX A. 

besides, addicted to strong drink whenever 
he could get it. Proud and selfish to a fault, 
always full of grievances, which were, as a 
rule, mainly fictitious, he had become an im- 
pudent expert at begging. No one of distinc- 
tion could arrive at our forts or Winnipeg 
without his tramping thirty miles to beg. I 
now speak of him without resentment, but in 
sober truth. 

There is another element in the Reserve — 
the Swampie Indians, who predominate. These 
are pious and religious, while their Indian 
(Salteaux) brethren are more indifferent to the 
spiritual law in the natural world. So the 
former sent for Jeroboam — Asham — out of 
Egypt to rule over the tribes of Israel. 
Asham is one of the very few converts of old 
Pequis, and I cannot recall ever seeing him 
taste a drop of that Demerara rum warranted 
to kill at forty roods. This semi-jocose per- 
sonal narrative may carry with it but little 
interest for the general reader ; but I shall be 
curious to know the result of "an appeal to 
Ottawa." 

Roderick Campbell, F.R.G.S. 

Park Road, Bushey, 

January 2yd. 



APPENDIX B. 321 

APPENDIX B. 



iMr. Wm. McKay, 

Berens River. 



Fort Garry, 

iiih Auf^ust^ 1863. 



My dear Sir, — Mr. Roderick Campbell 
leaves this week by the York Factory boats 
for Berens River, to establish and take charge 
of the new post we desire to open at the head 
of the river. His qualification for that position 
has been fully established during the three 
years he has been under my own immediate 
supervision. His marvellous capacity for 
acquiring the Indian languages has not only 
surprised myself personally, but the natives 
themselves are being wholly astonished at his 
quick acquirements. Besides, he has always 
proved himself to look at duty first ; punc- 
tuality and diligence are likewise his habits and 
gifts. He has also shown high spirits which 
are not easily subdued, touched with sparks of 
pride and Celtic bravery. The tribe with 
whom he is to deal are both savage and 
bloodthirsty — those who killed poor Cummings, 
as you know, but mark my word, young as 
he is, he will teach them right from wrong. 

S.K. Y 



322 APPENDIX C. 

I need not say more, except I am sorry to lose 
him, only of course we must have a good man 
there, which is more essential to our interest. 

Yours sincerely, 

Wm. McTavish. 



APPENDIX C. 



We have received the following documents, 
which were lost for thirteen years in the Arctic 
Regions : — 

Her Majesty's Discovery Ship 
" Investigator," 
Polar Sea, off Point Warren, 
2^th August, 1850. 

Sir, — I have to request that you will cause 
the accompanying despatch for the Lords 
Commissioners of the Admiralty to be for- 
warded with the least possible delay, so 
that if it is practicable it may arrive this 
year. You are aware of the great interest 
that is attached to this expedition, and 



APPENDIX C. 323 

consequently all information regarding its 
progress will be considered of the utmost 
importance. 

I feel convinced it is unnecessary to urge 
you to exertion in performance of this duty, 
the honourable Company with which you 
are connected having with great liberality, 
zeal, and beneficence, expressed their desire 
to render every assistance in forwarding the 
views, not only of her Majesty's Government, 
but of the nation at large, in facilitating the 
search for the missing expedition under Sir 
John Franklin. 

It is impossible for me to suggest any 
method by which this despatch may be 
carried, whether by Indians, specially engaged 
for the purpose, or through your usual com- 
munication, only permit me to beg that the 
most expeditious method may be pursued, and 
let the expenses attending its transmission be 
placed at the account of the Arctic Searching 
Expedition. 

I am, Sir, 

Your most obedient Servant, 
{Signed) Robert McClure, 
Commander. 

To 

The Officer of the Hudson's Bay Company 
AT Fort Good Hope, North America. 



324 APPENDIX C. 

On the outside of the enclosure containing 
the above letter appear the following words, in 
Captain McClure's handwriting : — 

*' I would thank you to give the Esquimaux 
who delivers this to you some present he most 
values.— R. McC." 

Underneath these appears the inscription, in 
Mr. Roderick McFarlane's handwriting : — 

** Received at Fort Anderson, Anderson 
River, 5th June, 1862. — R. McFarlane." 

'' Gave the Esquimaux who delivered the 
package one steel trap and two pounds of 
Negrohead tobacco. — R. McF." 



Fort Simpson, 

Q,ist August^ 1862. 

A. G. Dallas, Esq., Governor-in-Chief, 

Sir, — I beg to enclose you for transmission 
to the Admiralty the long-missing despatches 
of Commander (now Captain Sir Robert) 
McClure, of her Majesty's discovery ship 
Investigator^ entrusted by him to the Esqui- 
maux when off Cape Bathurst in the month 



APPENDIX C. 325 

of August, 1850, for the purpose of being 
forwarded to England, via Hudson's Bay 
posts on the McKenzie, and which despatches 
were received at Fort Anderson a short time 
ago. I may mention that ever since 1857, 
when I first descended and examined Anderson 
River (the Beghulatesse of the map), I hav^ 
endeavoured to ascertain from the Esquimaux 
the fate of the despatches in question, but 
until now without success. 

This I partly attributed to the inability of 
the Indians who acted as interpreters to 
explain my wishes to the Esquimaux ; and, 
indeed, it was only when on a visit to a party 
of these last February that I succeeded in 
obtaining information which has resulted in 
their discovery. . . . 

The package had been cut by the Esquimaux, 
and several of the letters opened, probably 
with a view of ascertaining their contents. 
I annex a list of the documents as received 
last June, all of which (except those to the 
Admiralty) are now forwarded to their respec- 
tive addresses. 

I have the honour to be, Sir, 

Yours very respectfully, 
(Signed) R. McFarlane. 



326 APPENDIX C. 

List of documents recovered after thirteen 
years : — 

4 packages addressed to the Secretary of 
the Admiralty, London. 

I package, Director -General, medical 
returns from her Majesty's discovery ship 
Investigator. 

packages addressed to the Secretary ot 
the Admiralty, London. 

I sealed letter addressed to Sir John 
Richardson, London. 

I sealed letter addressed to Rev. P. Latrobe. 

I sealed letter addressed to Rev. Reginald 
Wynniott. 

I sealed letter addressed to 0. Barrington 
Piers, Esq. 

I sealed letter addressed to William Bell, 
Esq. 

I sealed letter addressed to Francis Cress- 
well, Esq. 

I sealed letter addressed to (Lady) 

McClure. 

I sealed letter addressed to H. Sainsbury. 

I sealed letter addressed to Mrs. Law. 

I sealed letter addressed to William Arm- 
strong, Esq. 

R. McFarlane. 



APPENDIX D. 327 

APPENDIX D. 



Winnipeg, lo/is/'yy. 
Dear Mr. McKenzie. — This will introduce 
to you Mr. Roderick Campbell, whom I have 
known intimately since he entered the country 
some twenty years ago, in the Hudson's Bay 
Company's service, since which time he has not 
only shown energy and enterprise, but markedly 
so as an acute observer of passing events ; 
and I am certain that there is not any signifi- 
cant point in our alarming history of his time 
that will be lost to history and the world. His 
last enterprise was a bold, nay a foolhardy, 
excursion of two years' sojourn and unattended 
into the wild country of the Saskatchewan, 
the savage Sioux country, and the Rocky 
Mountains. During his absence he furnished 
the press in town with various contributions, 
all marked by a singular perspicacity and 
perspicuity alike, descriptive of the country 
through which he passed. Mr. C. is on a 
visit to his native Scotland, and I trust he will 
disseminate, as best he can, the truly vast 
possibilities of our virgin Prairie province to 
his countrymen there ! 

A. G. B. Bannatyne, M.P. 
To The Hon. Alex. McKenzie. 



BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS, 
LONDON AND TONBRIDGE. 



! h" i 



2 1902 



